Your business totally depends on your employees. If you have loyal employees, your employees’ loyalty will bring your business to the next level.
But unfortunately, this often doesn’t happen.
According to Gallup’s research, 70% of American employees are disengaged. Disengagement in professional life is disloyalty.
In fact, it’s not for no reason.
As we have discussed in the best practices to make employees loyal, loyalty is all about give and take. If you are loyal to the employees, employees will be loyal to your business.
So you should first care about them.
Here is how to do it.
If you follow this process, you can easily attract and retain loyal employees.
You should first understand what are basic human needs. What are the areas employees won’t compromise on?
To make it easy, let’s start with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy.
Although all the discussion is around fulfilling the basic human needs that lead to loyalty, let’s see what Maslow tells us about human psychology.
According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, some physiological and psychological needs drive motivation and make people happy and satisfied.
- Self-actualization
- Esteem
- Love and belonging
- Safety needs
- physiological needs (food and water for survival)
So recognition, respect, security, and money for survival are basic human needs. If someone is not getting enough, it’s hard to keep that person for long.
The following steps that we have discussed also lie under the same hierarchy.
Here is another piece of research that helps understand why focusing on employees’ happiness is important in retention.
According to the Global Workforce Happiness Index employees usually leave for: better compensation and benefits, professional development, learning opportunities, better opportunities for advancement, or improved work/life balance.
Now, keeping all those factors in mind let’s see what you can reconsider to attract and retain loyal employees.
On this page
Friendly culture
Other than money if something that influences employees the most is culture.
If we summarize the whole thing, we can say that everything happening in your company is a by-product of your culture. If you don’t closely monitor your culture, things will become tough over time.
In simple words, if an employee is valued and recognized, he gets a handsome salary, he will be loyal and he will stick to the job for a long.
In reality, both are hard to attain especially in startups.
Startups usually prioritize work, progress, and monetary benefits. They don’t overthink employees. So things are different in many startups. That’s why employees join startups to learn and gain experience to get jobs in a better company.
SMBs and companies on the other hand focus a lot more on at least culture.
That’s why people dream of working for big businesses. And it’s because of culture and salaries.
If a startup owner thinks that he will work in employee-oriented culture after he attains some success. It’s going to be a long journey.
None of the ads or billboards can be as good ambassadors as your employees and customers are. If a business has loyal employees, customers and everything else will automatically become easy things.
Monetary benefits
We need money for survival, to feel secure, and valued.
So an employee is giving you a full day and still living hand to mouth, you can’t retain that employee. If you are utilizing employees’ fullest potential, it’s your responsibility to give employees a good life.
So the best scenario is to pay more than anyone else does.
It sounds crazy but it’s nature’ rule you get what you give.
If you pay your employees 30% more than they deserve, they will not only love your company but also work harder to get you more profits than all others.
So offering reasonable amounts is another key factor to attract and retain loyal employees.
Personal development
The next big thing is growth.
Happiness comes with growth. So we all want to grow. Although the growth level can be different for different people.
Some people want to grow in their professional lives and get better jobs and positions. On the other hand, some people want to grow at their personal level.
If we look at human nature, the majority want to live a simple wealthy life. Here wealth doesn’t mean millions or billions. They just want to see some money in their bank accounts.
There is another type of people who want to grow at their personal levels.
Such people are ambitious, passionate and goals oriented.
You can help them to reach their destinations, and you will get the best work from them.
It’s true that you might feel that they will leave you once they come closer to their goals. Don’t be afraid, everyone will leave you on their time. It’s better to focus on taking the best from the employees. Ambitious people can give you more than the other majority.
So here is how to get the best from all your employees.
- Tell the secret that success comes with excellence. And excellence comes with hard work.
- Know their goals and help them achieve their goals. (As discussed above).
- Arrange training to improve their skills and abilities
The first step is also important. We are humans, we understand human language. If you are not telling them the truth, if you don’t guide them, you are losing a big connection with your employees.
Simply talking to them, and understanding them can get build a powerful relationship that nothing else can do.
Here is an interesting story about my brother.
He worked in the head office of an international electronics company for 2 years. Due to his communication skills, he was selected as a Zonal Sales Manager.
The company invested in his training and helped him excel. Secondly, again the company chose him for the next position due to his performance. But told him that he should excel more to reach the destination. His manager told him the areas where he needs to improve his abilities.
Now, due to their handsome salary, opportunities to grow, and hope to get become country head in the following decade, he puts all his energies into work.
Makes sense?
Flexibility
You know, the world is full of loyal people. We are all loyal to some people, some institutions, and some beliefs. Isn’t it so?
So it doesn’t mean if someone is leaving you is disloyal.
The employee may have some issues that he can’t compromise on.
Say the employee is traveling a lot to reach the office, the employee may need to move to another city due to domestic issues, or there could be many other reasons.
In such a situation, what can you do?
To not let go of your loyal employees, or attract new loyal employees, you should be flexible.
Say you can offer them remote work, and set monthly or biweekly physical meetings. In this way, high performers will feel even more comfortable working for your company.
It’s a fact that it’s hard to deliver cultural values to remote employees, but you should learn to do it. As the world is changing, in the next decade people will be working in the metaverse, and you can’t stop it. What shall you do?
Take the example of Godaddy and Google. Their remote employees also work perfectly fine because they are good at delivering cultural values to remote employees.
It’s true that small businesses and startups can’t provide big companies’ culture but at least they can work on the discussed four factors to attract and retain loyal employees.