Simply put, people hire on with you to make money and feed their family. But assuming that your pay scale is competitive, your employees will stay long term based on emotional factors …
To promote and foster the all important family feeling with our employees, we try to involve everyone in the company in some type of extracurricular activity.
We have company sponsored events such as picnics, fishing tournaments, softball leagues and (the biggest idea most recently done) a paintball team. The employees really seem to love this one! We have T-shirts printed up for everyone in these different events. Try to make them memorable and special.
Who can argue on this concept? Employees stay because they feel part of a family and families play together. Even though I will say you’ve got a lot of courage going out on a paintball team made up of your employees. Can you be “fragged” by a paintball? (I also like the recognition and exclusivity given by the custom printed T-shirts.)
Steve
P.S. One gentle request. Remember that this free QuickTIPS service depends on all our members sharing their Techniques, Ideas, Procedures and Systems. (Cute acronym, huh?) So please, go to our online form to submit your quickTIPS
We have a company breakfast meeting every 4 to 6 weeks. We go to a nice place with a private room and spend about and hour or hour and a half. It is paid time and I buy brekky. Chit chat and talk some business. Mostly communication issues and policy changes. A few times a year I take about 25 envelopes and put 1, 5, 10, 20, and 100 dollar bills in them and they are unmarked so no one including me knows what is in them. Usually about $500.00 total. Then I ask questions like “Who has a business card on them?”, “What is the pH of a solvent cleaner”, “What is the predominant emotion a new customer has when she opens the door to let you in?”. I ham it up and stand up like a game show host using daily doubles, two part questions, audio jeopardy, and other goofy stuff. If no one gets the answer I get the envelope. I am not a communist, I keep the envelopes I get. Everyone opens their envelope after the question and the rest go ooohh ahhhh or thats too bad you suck, you only got as dollar. It is a blast.
Absolutely. I always say people come to work for you because they need a pay check. However,they stick around long term because they are a) having fun and b) they feel part of a family. (Even though Jon-Don is very generous with me I am still here after 13 years for exactly those two reasons- I’m having fun and I enjoy the family atmosphere of our company.)
Steve
PS Employees also love it when the boss has a sense of humor too and especially when he can laugh at himself.If any of our Site members want to have a role model in this just get to know Nick Paolella, the “Godfather” of Jon-Don!