After spending all that time screening and hiring and training
and sharing all your trade secrets with your employees, you
don't have to sit around biting your nails, expecting their
letters of resignation. Employees will stick around if you play
your cards right.
So it was with BitFlip Interactive Group in New York City. Since
its 1997 founding, this interactive media developer has had
no--that's right--no employee turnover. For a company in
the Internet business, that's miraculous. The secret, according
to founder Erin Jurew, is "respect for your employees.
[Realize] you're not going to be in business without your
employees-and show them loyalty."
Her focus on giving her team fun and highly creative work has
also helped. "We handpick our assignments and clients,"
says Jurew, 41. "That keeps people interested." With
sales hovering at $3.5 million and clients ranging from government
officials to banking and securities firms, the BitFlip crew of 15
employees is always doing something new.
Content Continues Below
Still, keeping employees loyal in the employment frenzy of the
late '90s was quite a feat. Jurew took special steps in hiring
her staff from the start, such as having staff across departments
interview candidates to ensure a good employee match. "Ours is
a collaborative environment," she says. It's important to
her that each employee fit in with the culture-both skill- and
personality-wise.
And with benefits not always offered by small companies-like
profit-sharing and retirement plans, as well as a ping-pong table
and movie nights-Jurew is poised to keep employees for the long
haul.
Contact Source
Originally published in the November 2002 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine