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Whether you’re a small mom and pop shop, or a multi-million dollar regional enterprise, the biggest challenge, and the biggest strength, of any organization is people. The quality of your employees is directly proportional to the quality of your work and therefore, to your growth as a company.
From an employee’s perspective, there are obvious advantages and disadvantages to working for a smaller or larger company. But no matter what the size of your company, the key to employee retention is employee development. It’s not enough anymore to pay more than your competitors or offer a better benefits package. What fulfills anyone in a long term job is their ability to grow, meet new challenges, develop new skills and stay engaged, not only in the work, but in the business.
I recently had a chat with two of Brickman’s directors of employee development for their expertise on how to attract and retain long-term loyal employees. Karen DiFulgo heads up development in our Mid-Atlantic Division, and Armand Spotto heads up training in Brickman’s Penn Jersey Division. Here is their advice. Whether you have 25 employees or 25,000, if you have a well developed HR department or are just getting started, there are certain core elements to cultivating loyal employees.
- Create a vision and a clear career path.
- Foster a culture where every employee feels respected and valued.
- Encourage a workplace where employees can feel free to create a future for themselves and their families.
- Develop a system of rewards and recognition to keep your employees motivated.
Let’s look at each of these elements in more detail.
- Create a vision and a clear career path.
When a new employee comes on board, he should receive a full orientation that includes a clearly defined career path, including the steps and competencies required to advance along that path. This requires you, the owner, to do some succession planning. If you’re a small company that might be as simple as deciding who is going to run things if and when you retire. On a larger scale, succession planning involves developing a "bench" of talented individuals who are prepared to assume leadership roles as your company grows. A succession plan should be closely tied to your growth plan. Sure, you might have enough crew leaders to handle the work you have now, but what if you grow by 10 percent each year? Do you have the leadership talent ready now to assume those future leadership positions? At Brickman, we not only have a bench ready, but we cultivate "farm teams" to ensure we have future leaders warmed up to assume the positions left vacant by the bench talent. - Foster a culture where every employee feels respected and valued.
Every member of your team, no matter how young or old, experienced or inexperienced, has a talent and a unique perspective to offer. Respect starts with recognizing that talent and encouraging individuals on the team to participate in discussions and decision making on every level. Whether it’s a strategy session on how best to approach a particular job site, or a weekly team meeting to discuss on-going business issues, including everyone in the process will help encourage a sense of engagement in the business that will result in long-term, loyal employees.
Another way to show you value your employees is to trust them to do their jobs. If you are constantly micro-managing them, you are not encouraging them to become leaders themselves. So, the next time you are tempted to tell an employee what to do, stop yourself, and encourage him to make the decision on his own. In other words, let go, so they can grow.
- Encourage a workplace where employees can feel free to create a future for themselves and their families.
At Brickman, we like to encourage our employees to develop their strengths and their passions. We have a set career path, but we also leave room for employees to think outside the box, and develop their own customized career path. This involves a system of regular performance reviews, where employees and their managers can quantify performance, target areas for improvement and set specific goals to help them achieve the competencies they need to move along their chosen career path. We follow this up with one-on-one meetings where progress toward their goals is assessed by both the employee and their manager. In this way, we ensure there is not only a pool of talent ready to fuel our growth, but we know those employees are passionate about their work, because they helped design and build their own careers. - Develop a system of rewards and recognition to keep your employees motivated.
You don’t have to be a multi-million dollar enterprise to give your employees the rewards and recognition they deserve. The first step to this kind of motivation is to understand what your employees consider a great reward. Often this can be generational: the Baby Boomers are interested in adding value to the organization, and in being recognized (sometimes publicly) for their contribution. This can be as simple as a "job well done" in a staff meeting, or even a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant. On the other hand, the Generation Xers are more about work/life balance and team recognition. So, their reward for going above and beyond might be letting them off early to attend their child’s baseball game, or throwing a barbecue for their whole crew after work. No matter what the reward, there is no doubt that a little recognition will go a long way toward motivating your employees to continue the great work they do for you.
DiFulgo and Spotto recommend further reading for any company that wants to know more about human resources and growing great employees. In particular, there are two books by David Ulrich that will help demystify HR. “'HR Champion' will give you a good basic understanding of Human Resource issues,” says Difulgo. Spotto’s pick is Ulrich’s "Results-based Leadership," which focuses on building leadership accountability.
The author is president and CEO of The Brickman Group, Chicago, Ill. His company was No. 3 on Lawn & Landscape's list of Top 100 Landscape Conmpanies of 2005.