5 Keys to Retaining Your Best Employees Retaining top talent is the fastest and most effective way to grow your business.
By Zech Newman •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Great employees create freedom, multiply your efforts, and increase your bottom line. However, bad employees steal your energy, take your time, and can close the doors to your business. We can spend more time taking care of negative employees then building and sustaining our businesses. But it doesn't have to be this way. Our energy time and effort needs to be on our best and brightest stars. Knowing how impactful employees are we should focus our attention on getting and retaining top talent. To keep your awesome employees make sure you focus on these five keys.
Related: How to Create a Winning Employee Retention Strategy
1. Fire low performers.
I want to help people, and when I opened my first restaurant twelve years ago I thought to keep slacker employees around was helping. Keeping bad employees around just angered and caused my good employees to disengage or leave. It was not helping the slackers, and it wasn't serving me well either. People that are skilled and work hard want to work with other high achievers. Your company must remove employees who are not meeting the standards that you have set to retain your best employees.
2. Promote performance.
An environment of performance not length of service fosters a culture that high achievers love. Too often companies give raises off of time of service rather than on how well an employee is performing. Make it plain what you expect, and what the winning measurement is. Give raises to those that are achieving and surpassing your expectation. Performance as the measurement for promotion keeps great employees engaged and striving towards constant improvement.
3. Care about them personally.
To decrease turnover and increase the length of time employees work for you, you need to care about them. Often entrepreneurs can get focused on the grand vision of what they are building and forget the individuals that are helping them build their business. Personal connection is one key to getting people to stick around longer, enjoy their work, and help spread your message. Care about your employees to get and retain the best possible team members.
Related: Keep Your Talent: 5 Employee Retention Strategies for Long-Term Success
4. Open and honest work environment.
Over communication is needed for a healthy work environment. Nothing breeds distrust faster than secrets. It is tempting to try and hide challenges, but this will only degrade trust. Top talent wants to feel a part of something bigger and the only way this can be accomplished is through open and honest communication. We must set up a safe space to communicate disagreements and hardships. The more employees feel that you are listening to them the more they will buy into your mission. Communicate open and honestly to keep your star employees engaged and fighting for your company.
Related: Data Reveal the 7 Factors for Optimal Employee Retention
5. Opportunity to grow with your company.
If we are doing our jobs as the leaders of companies, a lot of our staff should grow to a point where they need to move up, or they are going to move out. Company growth and the ability to promote from within will help your company retain its brightest stars. As you retain your best employees company growth will begin to increase allowing more space for employees to move up the chain. Growth personally translating into business growth is the cycle that providing room for advancement can cause. Communicate and create opportunities for growth with your company and you will extend the time your best employees stay with your company.
Invest in your staff and they will invest in you. They will take your business places you never thought possible. Retaining top talent is the fastest and most effective way to grow your business. Connect with your employees heart, mind, and soul to keep your company soaring to bigger increases and better company morale.
