While I still have my fingers in business operations, I spend the bulk of my time serving as a coach to business leaders and their teams.
I don’t work exclusively within the shed industry, but a majority of my clients are shed industry folks. Without question, the most pressing concern continues to be HR: human relations, or “people issues.”
This is nothing new. All companies must address the matter of how they find talent; onboard, train, and manage that talent; and occasionally let them go.
One of the common failings of founding entrepreneurs is that they assume all employees want the same things from a job as they do.
Many people start a business because they want independence, the ability to determine their own pay levels, and the freedom to make many decisions on their own. This is not necessarily true for employees.
In fact, many recent studies show that employees actually want some very specific things, and employers must pay attention to these in order to attract and retain high-quality talent.
Money is one of them, but it usually falls to number four or five in levels of priority.
At the top of most lists is the desire to have a life, not just a job. This requires employers to recognize that employees live outside the workplace and have non-work-related commitments and interests.
Employers must understand and respect the employee’s lifestyle. This doesn’t necessarily require the radical measures sometimes offered in today’s workplace, such as flex hours, unlimited vacation time, and remote work options.
It does require that there is open communication and mutual respect around job and life demands.
Top-tier employers care about their people’s lives outside of business.
They find ways to invest in causes that matter to employees. They are connected enough to be aware of family challenges that spill over into the workplace and impact the personal health and well-being of the employee.
Employers do well to embrace as a core and functional value a principle John Maxwell advocates: We are people of value who value people and add value to people.
Today’s employees, especially those of the younger generations, also want to know if the job they hold has the opportunity for growth. This is not merely about career advancement, though a clearly defined pathway to career growth is a bonus.
Fundamentally, they want to know if their employer wants to keep them ignorant and servile, or if they care about the employees’ growth and continued development as human beings.
Some employers shy away from investing too much in the training and development of their people, as they fear they will grow out of their positions and leave the company. It feels as if investing in employees’ growth may only serve to equip them to leave the company.
I often hear this perspective: “Suppose I invest in their growth, and then they just leave and work somewhere else?”
An appropriate response is, “Suppose you don’t invest in their growth, and they stay. Do you really want employees not actively growing, learning, and developing?”
This does not always require a lot of investment, but it does require some attention.
Becoming a coaching leader is one of the most effective ways to invest in the growth of employees while also building connections with people that can last a lifetime. It is an incredible way to say, “I value you!”
And valued employees are “sticky” employees and usually growing employees.
Another concern, and one that in many surveys rises to the top, is the environment and culture of the workplace. This is a particularly challenging aspect of business life but one worthy of considerable attention and investment.
Building a healthy culture requires absolute clarity about a host of things. This clarity starts in the hiring process around both a solid match of core values and a good fit for the job itself.
The job must be defined adequately so that the prospect can be confident he wants to do this job, that he understands in general what it entails, and that he either possesses the skills to perform it to expected standards or will be provided with adequate training to succeed at the job.
When a new employee joins the company, the onboarding process is critical in helping him acclimate to the expectations that his boss holds.
Knowing something about the company’s history (major successes and challenges) along with a clear understanding of where the company is hoping to go allows the new employee to align with company priorities as quickly as possible.
This helps him “belong” and understand how he will bring value to the company.
This is not only important for new employees! It is critical that company goals and priorities are regularly communicated to all employees.
They need to know how they are doing. They need to be publicly recognized for excellent performance and coached with skill in areas that require growth and change.
People want and even need to belong to something larger than themselves, some mission that is greater than themselves, but one in which they can whole heartedly invest and utilize their individual talents and abilities.
These areas are the ones in which exceptional companies attract and retain the best talent available. Ignore this aspect of your company, and you can expect high turnover and a really big challenge to attracting the best talent.
With this type of culture in place, compensation becomes a secondary issue—important, but not the main factor. Compensation must be consistent with market rates for the role employees fill.
Some employees thrive on performance-based pay models. Others find it too unsettling to perform well. They prefer greater consistency that gives them a sense of security. They would rather have more shared risk between the company and the employee than to have the employee take all the upside and downside.
There are many compensation models that can work, but the ones that work always have a few things in common: market-based value, clarity, and an organized way in which success of the company is shared with the entire team.
Bonus structures—especially in small companies—tend to be whimsical, emotion-based distributions. It is worth investing in the development and maintenance of a bonus structure that pays out on company performance, not only individual performance.
Some models based on profit or profit growth can be very effective when they are aligned with metrics that individual contributors can leverage.
Building a workplace where employees thrive is one of the greatest values a business owner can bring to the marketplace.
A great employer/employee relationship doesn’t happen overnight. Working to bring clarityand carefully cultivating and maintaining the relationship will grow a high-performing company with a culture that attracts and keeps great talent.
