How do you stand out to attract great employees?

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.

How to have a hard conversation with your employees – our 10 best tips

1. Have a positive tone. – The meeting will be more productive if you approach it from a positive place rather than a negative. Even the hardest conversations can be approached in a positive manner and most of the time, this will help them go smoother.

2. Dive in, but have a soft introduction.  – Explain what’s happening in soft, positive terms before providing negative feedback or getting to the really difficult part. But then go right into it after the soft intro, and be firm.

3. Check your emotions. – This one can be tough, but putting your emotions away until after the meeting will help you and the employee get through the discussion. You may have certain personal feelings about a situation one way or the other, and this isn’t the time to express those. Just stick to the facts and get through it.

4. Prepare for the meeting. – This one should go without saying, but make sure you’re really prepared for what’s about to take place. Review your words carefully before the actual meeting, and have prepared answers for anticipated questions. Know what will take place and how you’d like the meeting to go before it actually takes place. You might even want to practice with an HR rep or another trusted peer leader.

5. Keep it simple. –Make your words clear, concise and understandable, and keep the conversation simple and direct. Just stick to the facts and the facts alone.

6. End with an understanding of the meeting outcome. – Do be clear and answer all questions for the employee and make next steps clear. Explain the outcome and consequences from the meeting, and ensure the employee understands what those are before leaving the room.

7. Have a witness present. – In some cases, this will make sense and in others it won’t. If you’re unsure, consult your HR rep or general counsel as to how to proceed before having a difficult conversation. Depending on the meeting’s content and outcome, it may be best to have a witness to the conversation. 

8. Put yourself in the employee’s shoes. – When crafting your message or thinking about how you’d like this to go, put yourself in the employee’s position. How would you like this news/feedback delivered? How would you still respect the person delivering it, and what would make you feel best about hearing it?

9. Take a deep breath.  – Before going into the meeting, take a moment to center yourself and make sure you focus on the task at hand. It won’t be easy, but you can get through this and you’ve got this.

10. Keep it professional. – This meeting isn’t personal, it’s business. Use productive statements and if the employee reacts to you in a negative or accusatory tone, remember that it’s not personal and you shouldn’t react. Just get through the meeting with your planned intent. Then later in the day you can have a moment to yourself and shake it off.