Pub. 11 2021 Issue 4

23 What are some ways you can keep employees committed to their work? • Keep your efforts at retention in perspective. Employee engagement is determined by personality more than any engagement initiatives you might come up with. The right hires are more likely to be engaged and stay because of who they are, not what you do in terms of programs. • Even so, skilled workers are hard to find, so value the employees you already have. Treat them right, and they will probably be happy in their jobs. • Show active appreciation for the work being done. • Be considerate about schedules and work with employees as much as possible. People need to know as soon as possible when they will have a day off, and if you ask them to work a difficult shift, they will appreciate knowing they won’t be stuck there forever. • Give new employees some time to acclimate to the work they’ll be doing. For the first week or two, educate new employees and have them meet with people to get acquainted. This introductory time gives you a chance to educate them about expectations and help them be invested in what they will be doing from the very beginning. • Check up on new hires regularly after start working. For example, see how they are doing after 30, 60 and 90 days. Ask them whether they are getting enough training. Make sure their benefits have been set up correctly. Schedule regular training sessions about industry trends and equipment, too, so employees stay current. Ensure they know about any career- growth opportunities you offer. • Invest in leadership education for supervisors a minimum of once a year. • Where possible, offer preventive mental health training and support. People have always had problems with mental health issues, but the pandemic has been hard on everyone. It’s past time to get rid of the stigma around mental health care. Suppose you can provide benefits that give managers and team members the skills to improve their emotional prosperity and a way to get help when those skills aren’t enough. Your employees will be more effective in their jobs, more likely to stay and less likely to incur medical costs. • Track what you are doing so you can figure out whether your ideas work or not. Continuous improvement won’t occur unless you pay attention to the process. Even though the obvious solution for a workforce shortage is to recruit more people, retention still matters. As a result, companies with a healthy, positive work environment have a definite advantage over less-savvy competitors because constant turnover is expensive. (How expensive? There are online calculators to help you figure that out.) How big a difference does employee engagement make? If you compare companies with higher employee engagement against companies that don’t, some experts say there’s a 20% difference in productivity. Engaged employees are more proactive than their less-motivated counterparts when it comes to solving problems. They don’t spend the day watching the clock and putting in minimum effort. That said, you are going to expect more turnover in some jobs than others. That’s why turnover can’t be the only consideration. You should also consider job difficulty and the amount of interaction a job requires. If a job can be done by 50%-75% of all applicants, focus on retention. Performance-related criteria become more important if a job can only be done by a much smaller percentage, like 1%-5%. And if the job requires a great deal of interaction with other people, think about whether potential employees are a good fit for the company’s culture. What does a “good fit” consist of? It’s pretty simple: don’t hire someone with negative personality traits to manage large groups of people. Since that can be hard to determine, consider using a company that specializes in screening potential employees. Someone may be exceptionally well- qualified but unpleasant to work with; if they can work fairly independently most of the time, without coming into a lot of contact with others, you can probably hire them and get away with it. Some skills are so valuable they make dealing with personality problems worthwhile. But all things being otherwise equal, always opt for the person who has better interpersonal skills. Many problems are outside your control, but you can create a good workplace environment. Take advantage of that fact. Your dealership will be much more likely to thrive if you do.  If you compare companies with higher employee engagement against companies that don’t, some experts say there’s a 20% difference in productivity