Staffing continues to be a challenge for many small business operators. When you do find great team members, it’s important to have a plan in place to keep them, as we all know how expensive and time-consuming staff turnover is.
So how do you keep your good staff happy?
This is purely anecdotal, but factors into your staffing challenges and is some food for thought.
A young (early twenties) friend just entered the work force as a nurse. She finished her practicum and was out looking for a new position, finding one at the local Children’s rehab hospital.
On her first day she posted this to her Instagram page.
“It’s fun here” she wrote under the picture of the white board in the break room that had a “would you rather” question on it. Employees had responded by writing their names under their choice.
Why?
No reason other than fun.
I asked her how important “fun” was when choosing a job.
She said fun was definitely important.
She went on to list a good environment, welcoming, feeling safe to ask questions and feeling comfortable with the people you’re with.
If the money was the same at various positions, then these would be her key deciding factors.
This is not that uncommon.
If you aren’t promoting these intangibles to your prospective employees, then they will decide based on the tangibles; money, hours, benefits, commute etc.
The white board in the image probably wasn’t written by the management, it was likely created by the culture and management allowing room for fun. And it’s a REALLY simple way to promote fun.
One of our auto repair clients does it with staff lunches on Fridays. Another client is doing it by giving their team members the opportunity to make fun videos for their social media. Here at Royalty Rewards® we do it with frequent games and trivia (with small prizes) at our daily morning meeting. You could have simple staff celebrations to mark special occasions, you could post engagement games like the one above. Our marketing program tracks your staff so you can know who signed up the most Rewards Members or processed the most transactions – which is a great opportunity for prizes and recognition.
Maybe it sounds pointless, and you certainly have a lot of other things on your plate. But it comes from the top. If you can’t have fun, share a laugh, your team won’t feel they can. It’s important that the work gets done, but it’s also important to employees that they feel seen and valued for being more than just an employee.
Research has shown that higher levels of employee well-being report lower levels of absenteeism, engagement, work-related errors and that happy people tend to be healthier, more inspired, productive and satisfied in their job.
“Where people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work"
