Become the business of choice and improve your retention and recruitment efforts
Whether you have an in-house function or you use an agency, recruitment is a sure-fire way to expend capital. According to Glassdoor, it costs around £600 to list a role on two job sites for 30 days – remember, there is no guarantee that this will yield any worthwhile results. If you use a recruitment agency, they can charge up to 30% of a successful recruit’s annual salary. Those are the costs before you have even got a candidate through the door!
You then need to consider the time used to paper-sift and interview prospective employees, as well as background checks and references to take care of too.
In the time it takes to replace staff members and get new employees up to an autonomous standard, your overall output will be impacted. The Encyclopaedia of Business explains that in teams with high turnover, daily processes are negatively affected, notably during the handover between former employees and current ones where apathy sets in for the departing worker.
Similarly, capacity is reduced which often means paying overtime or hiring temporary staff to cover the labour gap. Either way, both quality and quantity of work will be diminished from fatigued, overworked staff or from less committed temporary workers.
Once you’ve found the right person, you then need to equip them with the skills to do the job. Basic training, certification, learning of company values and methodology is an incredibly time-consuming journey, and as the age-old adage goes; “time is money”. In fact, on average it takes 1-3 months to bring a worker up to the required standard. Again, this can be costly when done on an individual basis.
This is the number one reason for staff leaving, according the Work Institute. Social Mobility is a growing concern in all areas of business and development is a mutually beneficial aspect of employment – it helps staff grow with the business. If a worker feels like they are static and not learning anything, then they will begin to look elsewhere. Having a clear progression plan and time put aside to discuss staff aspirations is key. A lack of clear, constructive feedback is quite often the first sign that development may not be forthcoming. Staff need to feel valued, and part of that is paying them the respect to praise when something is done well, but also expressing when and why something could be improved upon. Even if staff are not seeking promotion right away, knowing that they can progress will greatly improve job satisfaction. How can you improve your Social Mobility?
When work gets in the way of life, staff can feel stressed and underappreciated. Shift working in warehouses can particularly put a strain on this, as well as long hours and extended commute times. On average, a worker will spend nearly an hour a day commuting in their car which results in the daily commute being a leading cause for stress at work. In light of the Coronavirus pandemic and the increased pressure it has put on families and mental health, it has never been more important for an employee to have as little work-related stress as possible in their life. Without a good balance, workers will not feel valued and find another employer that provides a better offer for them.
Often it is not the job they but who they are working for that can be the problem. Issues with supervisors can cause unhappiness for a variety of reasons. A blame culture, favouritism, a lack of trust or transparency and having unrealistic expectations are easy ways to breed an unhappy workforce. Having poor people skills or being unable to engage staff needs to be resolved, however, sometimes people just don’t get on and this needs to be addressed on both the staff and management side.
Providing perks for your staff can make the difference between them staying with your business or moving over to a competitor. Showing you care about your staff is key and does not have to be shown by financial means only. Perhaps you can reward employees with extra annual leave for good performance or provide tea, coffee or snacks free of charge. Highlighting routes of progression and how a worker can develop and achieve greater responsibilities will motivate staff to keep providing the very best output.
Think about perks that will really help your staff and their stress levels. If your warehouse is in a hard to get to location, providing commuter transport can vastly reduce the stress of the daily commute and allow employees to arrive at work more relaxed and ready for the day. Zeelo offers a commuting coach service that brings your staff from tailored pick-up points near their homes to work in a safe, stress-free environment. This can be particularly valuable to staff with shift times outside of regular transport hours.
There is always more that can be done to optimise an experience, but we know that providing a cost-effective approach is the priority. Simple steps like a clean, well-lit work environment will improve employee mood. Other stress relieving implementations could be clear processes, correct equipment and appropriate training. However, you can minimise one of the largest factors relating to stress by making the journey to work as seamless as possible. Nobody likes being stuck in traffic or hunting for a space in a crowded car park – by providing a commuter service, like Zeelo, you will reap the rewards that come with the perfect solution to an all too common worker problem.
Teams work much better together if they get on, this extends throughout all echelons of the organisational structure. Regular team meetings and reviews with staff should be normal practice and a safe place for issues to be raised before they become unmanageable. Nurturing a cohesive team helps people to feel more comfortable at work and therefore work better together – it should be a priority. A happy employee who feels at ease in their work environment will always be more loyal and productive.
Every action to minimise the risk of COVID-19 transmission at the workplace should not only be taken but also conveyed clearly to all staff. This will help to put their mind at ease knowing that their health, the health of their families and those close to them will not be compromised when they are at work. Implementing these changes is an incredibly manageable necessity. Safety also includes job security, which is more important now than at any point in the past decade as we recover from the economic impact of the pandemic. Whilst a promise of retention may not be possible, you should keep employees informed of the situation and ensure lines of communication are clear and consistent. The commute can be a major concern for staff, so perhaps provide them with safe affordable commuter transport.