Having good people work for your business is key to growing it.

If you already have good employees it is a good idea to do what is necessary to retain them.

There are three good reasons to retain good employees:

1.  Cheaper:  A good employee that you've already made investment in to train them to give them knowledge and skills to be an effective employee is far cheaper than starting over with a neew one.

2.  Less Time Consuming:  When you bring a new employee on board it takes time to get that individual up to speed.  It is less time consuming if you already have a good employee that you can retain so that you don't have to go thru that process again to replace him/her.

3.  Good for Morale:   Retaining good employees is good for the morale of other employees.

1.  Build Trust:

Employees need to know that the people they’re working for and/or with can be trusted.  No one feels comfortable in an untrustworthy environment.  Employees must know that is said in confidence does not become public knowledge or used as a weapon against them at some later time.  You have to create an environment where employees can freely express themselves without it being held against them.  Wheter the topic is politics, religion or anything else, employees must know that if they are asked and give their opinions honestly, it will not be held against them.  You have to create an environment of trust by establishing the standards of conduct and quickly disciplining anyone who violates it.  They must know where to go to seek redress when they feel violated.  Complaints should not be ignored.  You must ensure that complaints are addressed in a timely and effective manner.  Personally survey your employees on a regular basis to assess the trust factor in the organization.

2.  Have A Clearly Defined Mission:

The mission of your company must be clearly spelled out and understood by all employees.  They must know how their efforts contribute to the overall accomplish of the mission.  This makes them feel that they have an important stake in the organization. 

3.  Coach/Mentor/Teach:

Coach, mentor and teach your employees the skills and values you want them to possess.  It shows that you care and you want them to succeed in the organization.  Employees will go the extra mile for your company if they know that you care about them. 

4.  Create Upward Mobility:

People don’t just want a job, they want a career.  Give them the opportunity for a career by creating upward mobility in the organization.  Employees prefer to stay in an organization if they have opportunities to be promoted and earn a higher wage.  Create upward mobility in your organization by structuring your organization vertically so that people can move from a lower tier to a higher tier.  For example, if you have 10 employees create several supervisory positions and move some employees into those positions instead of having all of them being supervised by you.  You can then supervise the supervisors.  You alo want to promote from within when a position becomes available.  Don’t hire someone from outside the organization when someone within the organization met the requirements or can be trained to meet the requirements for the position.

5.  Encourage Decision Making Among Employees:

Employees must be made to feel that they are part of the organization by playing a role in the decision making process.  Human beings relish the opportunity to make decisions.  When you take that away from them they will feel less relevant to your organization and they leave.  Empower your employees by letting them make decisions.  Define the items around which they can make decisions.  Start with simple items and gradually increase the scope and size of things over which you give them decision making capabilities.  Remember, you can’t always be there to make every decision.  This will ensure that you can rest easily knowing that they can make good decisions in your absence.

6.  Encourage Initiative:

Initiative is the ability to recognize an opportunity and take advantage of it before anyone else does.  This is something you want to encourage in your employees.  This is the kind of thing that will empower your employees to approach you with new ideas and solutions that will enable you to develop new products and services and grow the business. 

7.  Manage Workloads:

Good employees get their work done in a timely and efficient manner.  That is no reason for you to overhelm them with excessive work and huge projects.  Don’t just give work to those who always get it done.  Everyone must carry their share of the load.  The people not carrying their share of the load should be made to do so.  When you over burden good employees they get burn out, lose morale and leave.  Then you’re stuck with the bad employees whom you can’t rely on to get the job done.

8.  Provide Positive Leadership:

Your company will take on your personality.  You’re the leader and the type of leadership you exhibit will be reflected throughout the organization.  Positive leadership is what is required.  Be positive in how you deal with individuals and situations and insist that everyone who work for you follow that example.  Rally your employees around a clear and common vision of where you want to take your company by establishing attainable goals (such as the number of cusomers you want to reach, how many items you want to sell, etc.).  Let them know what their role is in achieving that vision by defining the specific tasks and quotas they are responsible for.  Manage employee stress.  Don’t over stress them.  Build a team mentality.  Make everyone feel that they’re part of the team.

9.  Reward Good Conduct:

Good conduct should be rewarded and not ignored.  You hire employees because you want them to do a good job and help your company to advance.  When they live up to your expectations or exceed it they should be rewarded for it.  It’s a way to showing that you pay attention to their performance and you recognize and appreciate it when good efforts are exhibited.  This motivates employees to try harder and do more.  This is good for growing your business.  Employees can be awarded with cash, time off, plaques, discount coupons, free stuff, recognize as employee of the month, etc.  There are many ways to recognize good employee effort.  Figure out which ones your employees prefer.

10.  Maintain Accountability:

Holding employees accountable is critical to maintaining a good work environment.  When you weed out bad employees the good ones stay and thrive and your organization is better off for it.  Keeping bad employees around will only degrade the work environment.  If good conduct should be rewarded then bad conduct should be disciplined.  You should be prepared to hold everyone accountable including your managers.  They are a vital part of the organization.  Bad managers will cause good employees to leave your organization.  Don’t let the investment you’ve made in good employees walk out the door.