"There was a time when compensation and benefits were the only differentiators most employers needed to attract top talent and differentiate themselves from the competition, but in the modern arena, you’ll need to think beyond basics."
September 22, 2021
by Star Building Systems
With pandemic-spurred changes causing employees to rethink how they want to spend their working lives, now is the time to implement strategies to hold on to your star players.
The pandemic altered our lives in countless ways. While some are harder to see than the others,it’s clear the work life of most Americans shifted drastically during the pandemic, it’s less obvious how much those workers’ feelings about their work shifted during the pandemic. Many got a new taste of freedom with remote working opportunities, while others found working from home isolating, lonely and oppressive. Many more had their hours reduced, were furloughed or laid off.
According to research from Robert Half, 38% of those surveyed feel their career has stalled since the beginning of the pandemic. Worse still, if you isolate the youngest slice of that group – those 18-24 – the number rises to 66%. That amounts to a lot of unhappy employees – unhappy employees who are likely see greener pastures wherever they look. As Cornerstone’s Human Resources Director Collin Bush pointed out, “We have a workforce that’s more mobile and more open to new career opportunities than they have been in quite some time.”
We all know the pandemic changed virtually everything, and that means pre-pandemic employee retention methods can’t be relied on to do the job in a post-pandemic world. Before we dive into retention recommendations, we encourage you to set up a system to track your employee retention on a periodical basis – at least quarterly. This will help you identify what’s working and what isn’t.
People cite a wide variety of reasons for leaving jobs. Some are more nuanced than others, but the solutions we’ll explore address all of these:
The most important measure you can take to ensure your employees stay on staff seems simple but can be easy to overlook: Hire the right people in the first place. Unfortunately, hiring often occurs amid organizational strain, when your people are stretched thin and you’re desperate. But searching for the right cultural fit can make all the difference. “Employees are wanting new and different things out of their work relationship,” says Bush. “We need to be candid about what exactly we’re looking for here. What are we providing? What are you wanting?” A bigger salary, better benefits and unusual perks can’t keep an employee around long if it’s simply a bad fit.
As Bush explains, Star Building Systemstends to tailor retention to each person. “It’s a concentrated and coordinated effort to look at the employee holistically and evaluate if we’re providing the best experiences for them as a person, an employee and a professional.” You may find this works for your organization. On the other hand, you may prefer to institute company-wide programs. The trick is finding the solution that fits your business.
There was a time when compensation and benefits were the only differentiators most employers needed to attract top talent and differentiate themselves from the competition, but in the modern arena, you’ll need to think beyond basics.
This is the most obvious differentiator – making sure your wages or salaries are competitive and enticing. However, as Bush points out, “Making sure you’ve got your wages in a competitive spot is one piece of the puzzle, but it’s not the entire puzzle. Providing a great place to work is just as crucial as providing great wages.” You want to be competitive both internally and externally – but that doesn’t have to be limited to wages. Get creative with other forms of compensation, like more paid time off (PTO), bonuses or some of the perks listed under “Extras” below.
With health insurance premiums at an all-time high and benefits at an all-time low, offering an uncommonly great health insurance plan not only sets you apart from the competition, but signals to your employees that you care about them and their families. It also makes leaving – and therefore giving up that plan – a much harder choice. The benefits you provide can be evidence of your investment in your people. As Bush said, “Provide a complete package that encourages employees to become the best versions of themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally.”
PTO and retirement plans are also fringe benefits that can help keep employees on your payroll, but you will likely need to do something unusual, like double the average PTO offering or matching contributions, if you want to set yourself apart from other employers. For example, Star has re-evaluated time-off plans to make sure it matches employees’ desire or flexibility. “The upcoming workforce has experienced multiple recessions and instability,” said Bush. “It’s important to them to have time and flexibility to live the lives they want now.”
Sadly, one of the best, easiest and most impactful things you can do to help an employee find a long-term home with your organization is also often overlooked. Sincere, well-planned on-boarding and orientation sets the tone for an employee’s entire tenure with your company. This is an opportunity to not only orient your new hire to the basics, but to introduce them to their teammates and the company culture.
Once you have the basics figured out, the next step is to explore how you can really set your organization apart from the competition, creating a work environment employees love and never want to leave. Some may work wonders for you, others may not be the right fit. Don’t be afraid to experiment and find what resonates best with your business, your people and your own corporate culture.
The most noticeable change we’ve seen since the onset of the pandemic is remote working. “A lot of people that have worked 10, 15 or 20 years in an office have worked from home for a year or more,” says Bush. “I would say flexibility is as important as compensation these days – being able to determine how we work, when we work, and where we work. We are seeing people leave their current roles because they don’t want to go back to the old way of working in the office.”
For many, this was a dream come true. For almost as many, it was a nightmare. While remote work can be freeing, it can also severely interfere with work/life balance, because it can be difficult to “turn off” at the end of the day. For those with children at home, remote work is even more rife with trouble. However, most workers would like the option to work remotely at least some of the time. The key word here, though, is option. The freedom to choose remote work makes it feel like a perk instead of a mandate. “We understand that work ebbs and flows, as does when, where and how we do our best work,” said Bush. “When you provide greater flexibility, you see people really take off – and productivity goes up.”
In the construction world, working remotely is often simply impossible. But try to find creative ways to make flexible work schedules. Scheduling flexibility can make all the difference in the way your people perceive their work/life balance. Consider flextime, a compressed workweek or asking your employees for their own ideas. They might surprise you.
Striking a balance between working for a living and having the time to enjoy that living is crucial. In most industries, it’s no longer reasonable to expect employees to be available around the clock. It’s also important that your people know you respect their time and lives outside work. However, sometimes the job requires a late night, weekend work or going above and beyond. When this is unavoidable, show your people you care about them and value their time by compensating them with extra time off.
While an old concept, sabbaticals are somewhat new to the business world. Sabbaticals aren’t simply vacations, but extended time away from work. While that may sound unproductive, it can fully refresh a person from the inside out and foster a profound feeling of life value. Agree to terms that make the sabbatical work for you ahead of time, like length and expectations for the employee to explore something related to the business and return motivated with new ideas. Sabbaticals can rejuvenate people and eradicate both burnout and boredom.
Having a new baby brings plenty of its own stressors, and enduring those while working or surviving on a reduced or non-existent income is even more daunting. Many employers now offer paid parental leave to help their employees through the first weeks or months of parenthood. This is another great way demonstrate to your employees that you truly care about them and their families.
Everyone needs validation and acknowledgement of their efforts. Before you balk at the idea of raising salaries and doling out bonuses, think about the many other ways you can recognize and reward your staff. Gift cards, a free day off, recognition in front of peers, promotions or new titles are all low-cost ways to make someone feel valued. However, it’s often just as powerful to thank them and point to how their efforts help everyone.
Sometimes massive, exhausting efforts end in discouraging futility while minimal efforts find random success. Rewarding and encouraging the effort is as important – even moreso – than rewarding the results. “Knowing your leaders are in your corner is a big driver of retention,” said Bush.
It’s been said that people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers. While this isn’t the case 100% of the time, it often rings true. You can avoid sour relationships between managers and those they manage with intentional bonding. This can be formal, through retreats, teambuilding sessions or excursions, or informal, with happy hours, team lunches or simply acknowledging important milestones in the lives of your employees: births, marriages, new homes, work anniversaries, promotions, retirements, etc. This can seem obvious, but unless you create a system to make it happen, it will surely be overshadowed by day-to-day demands.
Open lines of communication are decisive in how people feel about their jobs and employers. Employees should feel their ideas, questions, feedback and concerns are valued. This isn’t as easy as it sounds but it is worth the extra effort.
Setting up new hires with a mentor not only helps them learn the business, it also makes the mentor feel their experience matters. Mentees can also offer a fresh perspective to their mentors.
No one likes to feel like their career or personal development has stagnated. Take an active role in exploring career advancement scenarios with your people. “Remove barriers to let people grow within their roles and develop their skillsets,” suggests Bush. “Also explore additional career opportunities or open doors to other new divisions.” Take an honest look at your roles and structure to see if there are clear pathways for advancement. “When people want to grow but can’t see exactly how to do so, they’ll look elsewhere,” said Bush.
Sometimes the right path means jumping to an entirely different role or department. Do your people feel like that’s a possibility? Bush points out that “Keeping them on staff means making sure they feel like you care as much about their development as they do.”
Oftentimes an integral part of such development is making it possible for team members to pursue continuing education, training or attend industry conferences. When you allow time and/or finances to help with this, you prove that you value your employees.
Employees want to feel healthy – and they want to know you care about their well-being. Health insurance is a good start, but you can up the ante by providing gym memberships, massages, meditation classes and yoga workshops – addressing not just medical needs, but spiritual and mental well-being as well.
Most people want more than a paycheck. They want to find some holistic fulfillment in the work they do. They want to believe it makes a positive difference or helps the world in some way. “People want to be connected to something larger than themselves,” said Bush. Updates via company emails can show your people the good that you’re all doing in the community. Or you can take it to the next level with volunteer gatherings. “It’s all about building an environment where people are able to bring their true, whole selves to work.”
Sometimes simply altering employees’ work responsibilities – or rotating the more tedious tasks – can help avoid burnout. Be sure to communicate transparently if you decide to do this, because changes in responsibility can also ignite anxiety about job security.
Feeling ownership in the organization can be a powerful tool to drive growth and success. When an employee feels that they have a real stake in the business, they’re likely to feel much more invested.
It’s inevitable that some people will leave. Sometimes you simply can’t beat the other offer. Sometimes they want a complete career departure. Other times they’re leaving due to problems you can’t see. Make the time for exit interviews with anyone who leaves, ensuring confidentiality and amnesty so they can be candid. Assure them that anything they say won’t be held against them in any way (barring illegalities, of course). This can be your best opportunity to spot real problems in morale, organizational structure or your current retention strategies – problems you might not otherwise uncover.
Better yet, do “pulse interviews” before anyone decides to leave. Check in to see how they’re feeling, what they’re perception of the organization is and what they’d like to see change. “When you enable managers to have these kinds of conversations,” Bush said, “you can get ahead of potential turnover.”
All these suggestions won’t work for every organization, and they may have sparked some ideas for you. Either way, we hope you’ve found them useful. We wish you all the best as your business and people move past the pandemic and into a new – and better – normal.
Become part of the powerful Star network. We invest in builders who understand the value of results and provide support that develops strong relationships between you and the entire Star team.
Your building is the cornerstone of the community where people live, work and play. Find a local Star Authorized Builder and let us help you bring your vision to life.
