So, you decided to start your own business because your creative, your particularly good at your job and thought, why should I do this for someone else, when I could do this for myself and think I would be pretty good at it to? So, you start your business and things have gone well for you, in fact, things are going brilliantly and you know have 10 people working for you. All is good right? But hang on, if you are really honest, there are a few cracks that are starting to appear. Some of the your employees are taking a bit too many days off for your  liking, and some appear to be demotivated or don’t have any interest in what they are doing or how the company is doing any more, and you just don’t understand why this is happening.

I subscribe to a number of newsletters and articles that are relevant to my role in HR, and I have recently received the Tiny Pulse Employee Engagement and Organisational Culture Report, which has some really interesting and very relevant findings, if you are starting to see some of these cracks appearing in your business, then get in touch as we would love to help you resolve these before they become a real problem and start to affect your business performance!

The biggest issue and concern from 78% of the 400,000 leaders who participated in this survey was employee engagement and retention. So how can you improve employee engagement and retention levels?

1. Never Underestimate culture – your culture drives happiness, and some of the strongest factors that correlated to employee happiness include work environment and organisational culture.
2. Peers and Colleagues rule – this is the number 1 thing that employees love about their work place – their peers and colleagues so make sure you recruit well!
3. Keep an eye on market rates of pay and benefits – believe it or not nearly one in four employees would leave their employer if they were offered a 10% or more raise, so whilst this isn’t the be all and end all, you need to know what your competitors are paying in terms of basic salary and benefits and ensure that you pay what you can afford.
4. Professional Growth – only 25% of the employees surveyed felt they were being given opportunities to develop and grow. Millenials crave these opportunities so if you employee millennials, and don’t invest in learning and development opportunities, you could see a rise in people leaving you!
5. Make sure people feel valued and appreciated – not even 1 in 3 people felt that they were thanked or appreciated, with most employees feeling their managers were constantly pointing out faults!
6. Ensure employees are meeting their full potential – over 70% of the people surveyed felt they were not meeting their full potential and were constantly fire-fighting and dealing with issues rather than focussing on their priorities and objectives which would allow them to reach their full potential.
7. Ensure colleagues are pulling their weight – 35% of people surveyed said that there was someone in the team not pulling their weight which was demotivating and killed their level of productivity and engagement with the business. So make sure you deal with the poor performers!

Emma C Browning Ltd provides professional, commercial and practical HR solutions. If you need to deal with change in your business, it’s important that get some advice from an experienced change management expert, to ensure you have the best chance of making the changes work and stick.

To find out how I can help you, please contact me on 01280-848415/07766-741738 or via my website; www.emmacbrowning.com