How To Keep Your Employees Long Term.

Are your employees excited about working for your company? With companies competing for talented people and employees shopping the job market for higher pay, the strategies you use to create a work environment that gives them recognition for their efforts and rewards them for their contribution to the company's growth are critical. Making each employee feel like they are a valuable part of the team is crucial to reducing turnover and improving the employee's commitment to the company.

When I ask companies why employees stay with a company I get responses like benefits, pay and the ability to be promoted. According to a number of studies, the top two reasons people stay with a company is because they feel that the company cares about them and they can add value to the company. Here are a few ideas to assist you in developing long term employees.

Open the Books - A recent survey of employees concluded that 57 percent of hourly workers didn't even know the company's annual sales. Teach your employees how to read a profit and loss statement. Educate them on the cost of running your business and ask them for their ideas on how to decrease cost and increase sales. Meet with them monthly and update them on how the company is doing.

Feedback - You cannot tell people to do their best and then just hope their best is good enough. You (and they) have to know what they are doing well and where they can improve. Invest 5 to 10 minutes a day letting employees know how they are doing. That small investment of your time will pay big rewards to your business.

Show Appreciation Often - When was the last time you gave a thank you note or offered a heartfelt thank you for a job well done. The words "thank you" are seldom spoken with meaning anymore. Send thank you notes and incentive gifts to your employees to tell them how much you value them. People work for companies where they are appreciated.

Ask Your Employees - Ask your employees why they like working for your company and what suggestions they have for improving their work environment. Ask them what other products they would like to see you carry in your business. It will send a clear message to your employees that you value their feedback. In a national survey only 36 percent of the employees felt their company actively sought their opinion.

Remember Special Dates - Keep a profile on each of your employees. Remember birthdays, anniversaries with the company and other special dates will communicate a clear message to your employees that you care about them.

Invest in Your Employees - Provide your employees with the skills necessary to communicate clearly and effectively with your customers. Teach them how to handle unhappy customers, how to sell more effectively and how to handle stress in the work place. Most people want to improve their ability to do their job better. Your desire and commitment to improving the skills of your employees will put you head and shoulders above most of your competitors.

Make Your Employees Owners In The Company - People work harder and care more about customers when they feel like they have ownership in the business. Create an incentive plan that lets them share in the profits. Set sales goals and a plan to achieve them. Get your employees involved in setting the sales goals for the company.

Recognition - In the fast-paced, high-stress environment that most companies face in competing for their share of the market, owners forget to recognize the efforts of their employees. A couple of tips on recognition: put it in writing, a simple personal note lets them know what they are doing well; share their success with the company or put them in the newsletter; send a note to their spouse, family, mother, brother, or sister. MCI set up a sales contest that if they broke a certain sales volume, the manager would personally call every one of their mothers. There were a group of proud mothers when their children made the sales goal. Pick up Bob Nelson's book, 1,001 Ways to Reward Your Employees, for more tips.

Support Their Personal Growth - Provide the opportunity for your employees to increase their life skills. Have professionals from your community educate them on how to make use of technology, how to live a healthy lifestyle and how to plan for their future.

Be Open To Ideas - In one year, Toyota employees submitted 860,000 suggestions for improvement. Sixty-six percent of employees in Japan regularly generate ideas. Only 8 percent of American employees do. One reason may be that an average Japanese manager uses four out of five suggestions.

Make It Fun - Companies like Southwest Airlines practice the philosophy of making work fun for employees and customers alike. Create celebrations for achieving company goals, decreasing costs or make up a reason to celebrate if you run out of ideas. People have better attitudes, perform better, and take better care of customers when they really enjoy their job. Create a work environment that your employees look forward to everyday and your turnover will decrease while your productivity and customer retention increases.

The American Compensation Association in a recent survey revealed "that it generally takes 5 percent to 8 percent of an employee's salary to change behavior if the reward is cash and approximately 4 percent of their salary if the reward is non cash." It's the small things a company does that tells those employees that they are special and valuable to that company. Pick one idea and put it into action at your business.