Sharon: Hello, this is Sharon, and I’m here with Steven Kohnke from Denver Business Coach. Hi Steven.
Steven: Hey, Sharon, how are you doing?
Sharon: I’m good.
Steven: Good.
Sharon: What’s our topic today?
Steven: So, you know, as a business owner, it’s it’s helpful to think of your business, not just as this thing that sells something, you know, there’s a bunch of different components that go into it. So what we’ve done here is really broken it down into seven different main components, those being foundations, leadership, sales, marketing, operations, financials, H.R. And we’ve really put together this series of videos for tips and insights the business owner can take and apply to their businesses right away. And today we’re talking about the H.R. pillar and more specifically, the Employee Retention Strategy.
Sharon: Well, we all know employee retention is important, but can you explain what you mean by having a strategy?
Steven: Yeah, so this is the overarching label we really give to what is actually many different activities that are aimed at keeping the right employees around for a long time. So, these are strategies that a business has in place to help encourage employees to adopt what we really refer to as an employee ownership mentality, having them think like they’re an owner of the business. And that helps with the retention piece.
Sharon: All right. So, why is it important for businesses of all sizes? You know, someone might think I just have a few employees and it’s not worth investing time in and creating this strategy.
Steven: Yeah, a great question, you know. Well, I know in the past we’ve talked about the risks of bad hires and turnovers and employees. And I think this is a very similar risk. However, if it’s an employee you actually want to keep around and not necessarily that bad hire the opportunity cost of losing them is so much higher in small businesses. It’s difficult to compete for a players with big companies that can offer potentially bigger salaries, better benefits.
And, you know, if you’re not thinking of awesome ways to really keep these players around for the long haul, you’ll end up stuck at whatever level you’re at. The only real way to grow and scale a business is through people. And if you’re not paying attention to your people, they’ll they’ll leave you. And again, you’ll just kind of stay where you are. So ensuring that you’re actually putting something in place that allows them to stick around and want to stick around is going to be what gets your business to the next level.
Sharon: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, and thinking about it, small business in a certain way gets even more impacted if they lose an employee. Right. If they have three employees and they lose one of those employees, that’s that’s a huge impact versus a business maybe that has twenty five employees and they lose one. So…
Steven: Exactly. That’s much bigger impact.
Sharon: Yeah. So how as a business owner, do you go about creating this employee retention strategy?
Steven: Yeah, so this is probably one of my favorite strategies to develop with my clients. I’m always preaching about how can you facilitate a culture that allows your employees to adopt that ownership mentality? This is a key piece and being able to actually develop the retention strategy. You know, if you really break this down into its basic parts, the question becomes what gets people to stay in any situation? And I think the answer to that is people want to feel wanted.
They want to feel needed, and they want to have a purpose. When all three of those things are met, their reasons for staying around know it’s hard to find one not to stay around. So when you’re developing the strategy, it’s…How can I help my employees feel wanted, feel needed and have a purpose.
Steven: So, you know, coming up with the answers to those questions are the biggest ways that your business and it varies between business to business, to business. And each one is going to have its own type of retention strategy. But, you know, if you’re having fun is a great one. If you’re if you feel heard, if you have a really good feedback loop, feedback strategy, communication strategy with your employees, if you’re able to provide, just a cohesive environment where people can work towards a common goal, that alignment piece, and be reiterating that, those are all some basic things that a business can establish to have that retention strategy. And again, it comes back to how can you help your employees feel that they are owners of the business and their decisions matter, their role matters, and they are wanted and needed within the business?
Sharon: Yeah, we we all want to be in that kind of work environment. But thank you for highlighting it. Any closing words as we wrap up today?
Steven: Yeah. You know, this strategy here, it’s it’s a big one and it’s a fun one for and for us to do. It’s it’s really important for businesses. And there are so many different variables that go into it. So if you’re working on employee retention strategy, give us a call. Easiest way to get a hold of us is the website denverbusinesscoach.com, go there and you can reach out to us in a couple of different ways and we’re happy to have the conversation.
Sharon: Thank you, Steven. Talk to you soon.
Steven: Thanks Sharon, bye.