How Can You Retain the Top Talent

HOW CAN YOU RETAIN THE TOP TALENT?

Let’s say you have a great team. There may be one or two of your employees that you absolutely love, but then they decide to leave. 

I’ve been in that position, where I’ve poured into somebody, and then that person left. That person left my company to go be a missionary in Thailand, and it was really hard for me because of how much I poured into him. If you’ve ever had somebody leave, it’s almost kind of hard not to take it personally because of how much it hurts. 

So, what can you do to retain the top talent to not only limit that hurt, but to also save money? Statistics tell us that it costs a lot of money every time that you have to turnover and bring in new talent. The hiring process and the training done for that person, takes a lot of time!

How can you retain talent to save you yourself time, money and the heartache? INC.COM has an article that outlines the ten things that employees want. However, it was number three on this list that I believe can be attributed to retaining top talent. You can keep your top talent by giving them freedom and flexibility. 

No one likes having a job that they HAVE to go to, and no one likes going to a place of employment that makes them feel kind of trapped. No one likes those feelings. Part of the reason why you are a business owner is because you get to have that freedom and flexibility for yourself. It is a big deal and people want this freedom. They want this flexibility. By coming up with different and unique ways that we can provide freedom and flexibility to our team, is a way that we can retain the top talent. Again, Inc Magazine said that this was number three on the list! 

WHAT IF THEY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE FREEDOM AND FLEXIBILTY?

You may think that if you give your employees freedom, that they’re going to take advantage of it. Or you may think that if you give them freedom and flexibility, and if you’re not rigid with certain things with their schedules, breaks, lunches or with their time off, then they are going to take advantage of it. 

If they start taking advantage of it, then that’s proof that that’s an employee or a person that you probably can’t trust. If they are going to take advantage of that, then what else are they potentially taking advantage of behind the scenes when you’re not looking. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have security cameras everywhere. I don’t want my job as a business owner, to be day to day watching everyone like a hawk to make sure that they’re not cheating me, and to make sure that they’re doing the stuff that I paid them to do. 

I don’t want that. I want a team of trusted people, and when you give people freedom and flexibility, it’s going to help weed out those people real quick. Who can I trust and who can I not trust? 

FREEDOM WITH THEIR SCHEDULE

You might also think that if you give them freedom, then they’re not going to work hard. You may also think that if you have this structure, and this rigidness to how your day is, then they produce more- WRONG. 

Happify H.R company had a statistic that showed that employees who were able to take breaks when they want and for how long they want, had a 30% higher level of focus when they were working, a 50% higher level of creativity so they could solve problems better and were 46% less likely to call in sick or miss work. 

How big is that? Every single time somebody calls in or misses work, it is not fun! Think about how difficult it is to have to figure out how you’re going to cover for that person, especially if it’s unexpected. Nobody likes that when their team is doing it. So, if you don’t want your team to call in sick as much, and if you want them to work as often as possible, then this study says that giving them flexibility with some of their schedule is a big deal. 

FOCUS 

Doesn’t the 30% higher level of focus just make more sense? Our brains are literally unable to focus for eight hours long and work the entire time. If you and I as managers and owners can’t focus for that long, then why are we expecting our team to do that as well? Did you know that the 40-hour work week wasn’t even created around a social science or behavioral science that had anything to do with human activity? The 40-hour work week was created by someone who did manufacturing. He said that his machines are going to work better in a 40-hour work week, so he created the 40-hour work for people to adapt to his manufacturing machines that were creating things. 

BREAKS

We need breaks. We need mental time to just relax and conserve calories, so that when it comes time to attack, we are ready to go. 

There is even a study called Pomodoro that says you should only focus in for work at around 20 minutes per time and then take another break. They say to add little clocks and alarms that you can install on your computer that tells you when to take a break and when to keep working. There are all kinds of studies that prove that you’re able to focus better when you’re taking those breaks.

SELF-MOTIVATED EMPLOYEES

We want employees who are self-starters. We want employees who are self-motivated. If we’re not giving them freedom or the flexibility in their day to take breaks and everything else, and if you’re not trusting them with that, then they’re just going to sit around and likely wait to work until you tell them to. Why create a culture of a team that is waiting on cues from you before they do anything? I want my team to solve problems and pursue this mission that we’re on. I want them to act in their gifting and perform without me telling them to go perform. The freedom and flexibility that I give my staff, is a huge reason for that. 

I’m not saying that everybody needs to have an environment like we have at Stewardship, where people can literally come and go as they please. There are retail situations like coffee shops for example, that makes this not as realistic to be able to come and go as you please. So at least giving them the freedom to say, “hey, now’s a good time for me to take a break”, might be worth it, even in a retail environment. If it’s a good employee, they’ll know that if there’s a lot of people in the store, then they can’t take a break, so they won’t. They will also know THAT when there isn’t a ton of people that it would be a good time for them to have a break before the busy rush comes in. This type of employee not only saves you time from having to walk over to them to tell them to have a break, but it also gives that employee freedom and flexibility. That sense of freedom, which we know statistically will help you retain top talent, is what people are looking for in an employer. 

CALL TO ACTION: Find one area where you can give a freedom to your team and a freedom in their schedule. 

It doesn’t have to be like my team, where people can come and go as they please. It could be something where one day a week, they are able to work remotely. Or it could be where you let them choose one break a day that they can take whenever they want, however they want. Or they can choose how long their breaks and lunches. Maybe it’s unlimited vacation time, which statistically says that if you give people unlimited vacation time, they’ll take less vacation time. 

PRO TIP- Give them some sort of freedom or at least provide for them the sense of this flexibility or freedom. Evaluate how you’re currently doing, scheduling when people have to show up, when people have to leave, lunches, breaks, vacation time, and evaluate what area can give you some autonomy to your team. Try that this week and that will help you retain the talent that you have on your staff, so that you don’t have to have that hurt to your wallet and to your time.

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