How Small Businesses Can Encourage Employee Loyalty?

Getting your small business together doesn’t end when you rent your space and hire your employees. While finding good workers is an important part of the process, if they don’t stay over the long-term life of your business, you may find yourself continually rehiring and retraining employees. Discover several of the following ways your small business can encourage good employees to stay.

Encourage Brand Identity

Companies today succeed or fail based on how strongly they identify themselves as a brand. While many people may think of brands as only a customer-facing phenomenon, strong branding internally can help generate loyalty among your employees. Having a set of company values creates an identity around which your employees can connect with, and events such as employee picnics and sports games can bring a team together. While overdoing internal branding may turn off employees, a reasonable program of team-building activities combined with a strong identity and some elements of fun can make your firm stick together.

Reward Headhunting

One of the best sources for new employees is the web of contacts that your existing workers already have. When you are hiring new people in a department, you can ask your team members if they know about any people who are looking for the types of opportunities you can offer. Whether this reward is through a formal bonus program or simply through asking for advice, the reward not only amplifies your ability to attract the help you need, but also fosters a friendly workplace environment.

Read also: How to Deal With Poorly Performing Staff

Delegate Responsibility

While the realities of small business operations may often demand that owners and founders handle more than a normal share of the work, employees like to feel that they have some responsibilities in the company’s operations as well. While a small firm may not be able to afford to have an extensive management structure, having some higher positions can be a way for you to allow the ambitious and competent members of your team to advance professionally. But beyond that offering, you can give your departments some autonomy on matters that affect them or form task groups to study important issues.

Make Decisions With Your Team

If you have succeeded in building a sense of ownership within the ranks of your employees, they can feel involved in the decision-making process as much as possible. When you need to formulate an important business decision, you can demonstrate to your employees that you value their advice. Informally, you can simply ask your employees for feedback outside of the context of meetings or business emails to gain quick impressions. Formally, you can gather employees from affected departments and brainstorm ideas.

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Offer Perks

Jobs aren’t only about earning the paycheck at the end of the week. They are also about the benefits that you offer. The formal benefits package that your company offers should be competitive within the industry, but other ways exists that can enable you to offer added value.

One way is to introduce a company phone plan. Give your employees business phones serviced by T-Mobile, phones that use the ultra-reliable, ever-expanding LGE company network with one of the fastest speeds in the market. Company phones can help you encourage your workers by giving them a cool tech toy, while also offering you the ability to monitor their work productivity on the company device.

Trust Your Workers

Small businesses often espouse the interests of their founders. Naturally, founders try to share their experience with their workforce. However, a thin line often exists between sharing experience and being overbearing. Employees may not always appreciate having a boss constantly hanging over their shoulders, monitoring them, and making micro-level decisions for them. When you are managing your small business, you need your employees to see that you trust them enough to let them do what they do best. Instead of micromanagement, you can focus on big-picture issues, involving yourself in the small matters only when necessary.

Starting a small business is a difficult and nerve-racking enterprise, but finding and retaining good employees is a great way to defray that nervousness. Find your best-fit workers and let them lead your business to its greatest success.