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Your company’s culture, mission, and purpose will attract talented people and inspire them to do their best work.
But loyalty doesn’t take hold until your employees are living their best lives.
In fact, a recent study found that 89% of employees have experienced burnout at some point in the last year, and 70% would consider leaving their current job for other companies that offered more resources to support them.
You want people who are already doing their best work, but perhaps not yet living their best lives. This way you have evidence of their skills, value, and efforts.
Sure, place ads on Indeed, but also look for currently employed people who stand out from the crowd on social media and in online groups dedicated to their roles, industry, and craft.
There are thought leaders at every level. You want to catch people who are thinking deeply and aiming high.
State the role’s salary range in the job description or bring it up in the first interview. Yes, it makes sense for your employees to do a bit of research about what they should be making in their role and ask for it. On the flip side, you should research their role and offer a fair wage for it. It’s important to let candidates rule themselves out based on salary or you will lose them sooner than later. Remember, they’ll only seek to stay when they are fulfilled at the workplace. This looks different for everyone.
Do short interviews of qualified candidates. Encourage your team to be part of this process—you want their ownership and support of the new employee. If a team member rules out someone, don’t hire them. It’s not a good fit. Use one of the many tools available to assess transferable skills. 75% of Fortune 500 companies have reported using a psychometric pre-employment assessment to determine fit and readiness for the role. You’re looking for communication skills. Emotional intelligence. Ethics and attitude. Learning speed. Collaboration abilities. Problem-solving and analytical thinking. Depending on the role and onboarding process, you can often hire for culture and potential, then train for job skills.
Equity is tremendously important to purpose-driven organizations making a positive social impact. Always be transparent about wages and raises. Remember, employees are protected by law to talk about their salaries—you should assume they are comparing notes. If you can’t start employees at the salary you’d like to, show them the roadmap to that salary, and stick to it. People living their best lives don’t ask for raises, they are offered raises without asking. Tie raises to a clear mix of market-rate, performance metrics, and added responsibilities. Raises shouldn’t be a surprise, and they aren’t a gift.
Pizza Friday (and the like) doesn’t cut it anymore. Especially if your SMB is a temporarily distributed workforce, or planning to go remote for good. We aim to offer live-your-best-life benefits, and our short-term goal is to create an even more robust benefits package. Think unlimited PTO, fitness reimbursements, extended leave packages, generous retirement, even employee ownership. If you’re still in the stretching phase with your benefits package, be transparent about that with your candidates. Give them a timeline by which they can expect certain improvements in benefits. Then hit those targets.
One of the best ways to keep great employees is to offer continuous development opportunities. As much as possible, define each role’s trajectory and build depth in the organization, so employees can see where they are headed. Offer training needed to move forward, and help develop skills that are necessary to do better overall. Spend time talking to your direct reports about their interests outside of work. Help them develop those skills too. Passionate about yoga or meditation? Send them on retreat. Love to woodwork? Help them invest in new equipment. They’ll show up to work happy and refreshed. Generosity creates a virtuous cycle.
If you want to retain people living their best lives, protect them from bad clients. Clients who don’t know what they want, clients who shame and blame, clients who want more for less, clients who don’t value service professionals. Even as an SMB, choose clients aligned with your purpose and culture whenever possible. One of the core activities of a B Corporation is to create more high quality jobs with dignity and purpose. In our own company, we protect the dignity of our employees by vetting our clients. This way, our employees have the energy to do their best work for the clients we have. And this is why we seek to work with other B Corps and similar purpose-driven companies. They are an extension of our culture.
View the great reshuffle as an opportunity to showcase and refine your elevated purpose, promise, and process, and you will be rewarded with a company living its best life.
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