How do you stand out to attract great employees?

By Staci McIntosh

Newsflash! If you haven’t heard yet, it’s getting pretty tough to find those great candidates who become high-performing, long-lasting employees. To attract and keep the best, it helps to get creative about the extra perks you provide your employees. Gone are the days when a salary and benefit package alone make you stand out as an employer. What makes youspecial?

First, look at your core product or service and offer that to your employees for free, or at a discount. For example, Penguin Random House offers their employees free books. And Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream employees get to take home three free pints of ice cream per day! If you’re a convenience store, consider letting your employees take advantage of unlimited soda or those yummy nachos. Don’t sell a product? What service do you offer, and could you offer them to your employees? If you’re a yoga studio, why not offer free classes to your employees? If you’re a spa, how about a free massage every month? Using your product or services as an employee selling point has the added advantage of creating more brand ambassadors for your business; your employees will tell others why they should become your customers.

Also examine your core values. See how those values might translate into a unique employee benefit. Pet Smart has a pet-friendly workplace where employees can feel free to bring in Fido for the day. Zappos aligns their fun culture by offering an Alice in Wonderland themed employee training room with an actual ball pit for playing in, along with free sodas. One of MGM Resorts’ core values is service, so many employees can access paid time to help out the community. What are your core values, and are you embracing them in your employee culture? Are you treating your employees as well as your customer?

Finally, how flexible are your work hours? These days, employees are working harder to balance their personal lives with their careers. Employers who offer flexible hours or benefits to enhance work-life balance create loyal employees who refer their friends and family to your business. Netflix offers a “no work schedule” environment where employees are simply expected to get their work done and take the time off that they need. The City of Henderson offers a four-day workweek, allowing employees to spend more time with their families. If your business doesn’t require shift work, consider providing flexible hours based on work product, not on the time clock. Can’t be totally flexible? Allow your employees to trade shifts on their own to meet the changing needs of their family.

There are plenty of other goodies you can put in your employee compensation package. So you aren’t that creative? Give your current employees a challenge: “What low-cost perks would you appreciate as an employee? What do you think your peers would want?” When you engage your current excellent employees in the recruitment process, they will become your best recruiters!

Need more help, give us a call! Here at the Simmons Group, we are experts at employee recruitment and retention. We’d love to help you come up with a compensation package to attract your best candidates.