How to keep your employees - Fully motivating your staff is key

This post came out from The Straits Times (29 April 2016)
Title - How to keep your employees

Some pointers that I've got are:
1. Allow employees to think for themselves
2. Care for your employees
3. Increase salaries
4. More questions lead to better understanding

On Allow your employees to think for themselves

• Employees must be encouraged to think for themselves, rather than just blindly following a rule without any common sense. 
• One way to do this is to ask them "what do you think we should do?" when employees ask what they should do next. 
• This did not always work. Even when it did, always do not do what the employee suggested. Instead, talk through their suggestions and help them reach a good conclusion themselves, rather than impose the answer. 
• Persevere with this approach and employees will start coming to you with solutions, and feeling like they are part of the business.

On Care for your employees

• This means mixing with them, understanding their problems and ambitions, and genuinely caring how they are progressing. 
• Caring for employees takes time. When an employee sees the boss takes time to be concerned about them it creates a bond that no amount of bonus or team building exercise can achieve. 

On Increase salaries

• This strategy for keeping employees is simple but often overlooked. Careful management is required when paying valued employees above the market rate. 
• Understanding what this careful management involves determines whether the more expensive workers will produce better results. The act of paying them more attracts some to the business but it does not itself, make them more productive. 
• In order to increase productivity, look carefully at how these valued employees are paid, and how they have their profit responsibility explained and given to them. By ensuring that employees engage in quality work, rather than just quantity, determines whether the policy works.

On More questions lead to better understanding

• Ask questions. Remember that every time you have to lay down the law it is your failure, not theirs. 
• When you make mistakes, admit them. Ask employees what they will do and what you should do in the future to avoid similar mistakes. Celebrate mistakes as a part of learning.

Yours,
Something Small Thinking Big