By Mitch Bernet, co-founder of Atadex
With all the government programs that, in many cases, allow people to make more money sitting at home than they can by going to work, it’s becoming a significant challenge to bring new employees into a business. This challenge in finding qualified people puts more pressure on companies to make sure that the good people that they already have are taken care of, so they stay with the company long term. You want to build on the great people you have, not continue to replace people who are leaving. And, as we know in this post-Covid era, replacing employees is not just difficult, it is expensive.
Over the years, and across many different industries, we have seen the dramatic impact that great employees can have on customer satisfaction and subsequently on the long-term success of the business. That is why we always focused our efforts on taking care of our employees first and foremost. We felt if we gave them a great work environment, trained them well, and rewarded and recognized great performance, our employees would take great care of our customers. In turn, our customers would take great care of our company by giving it more business. It built a success cycle where we all participated.
We always felt blessed by the quality of the front-line people we had servicing our customers in very challenging businesses. Our employees knew what was expected of them, and we made sure that they knew that they mattered to us. That is why we never had a non-compete agreement for any of the businesses we owned. We always felt that it was our responsibility to provide an environment that people would not want to leave, instead of forcing them to stay because of some legal document.
This is not an incredible revelation, but very few companies really take the time to do it right. In a time when taking care of your employees is more important than ever, it is key not to take them for granted. They all have choices on where to work, especially now, and the really good ones can move on to another company easily. I see the current hiring challenges we all face to be a great opportunity to show people how much they mean to you and to your business.