Four Ways Businesses Can Ensure Employee Loyalty

Businesses have to worry about competition in a variety of areas, and for the most part, they know exactly how to get an edge in their market. There’s one type of competition that can be hard to address, though: employment. That’s right; your employees might only be with your company until a better offer comes along, which leaves you having to recruit, hire, and train new team members in what can feel like a never-ending revolving door of turnover. 

So how do you address the problem? By creating loyalty among your staff. At FHI, we use four basic techniques to make sure our employees know just how much they mean to us. It helps them to understand the value of sticking with us for the long haul and gives us the opportunity to develop associates from entry level positions to senior-level leadership.

Treat Employees Like People

We try to always remember that people are human beings, not human doings. Employees aren’t a computer program you can press “start” on and walk away. Every person in your operation has goals and aspirations they’re hoping to meet in their career. Odds are they aren’t working a job just for the paycheck, but for the opportunities beyond their current role.

As an employer, you can use each employee’s talents to help develop them into valuable leaders at your company by recognizing what each person brings to the table. When people know their skills are acknowledged and utilized, it helps them feel valued, which will boost their loyalty to the company. After all, why would you leave a job where you know exactly how important you are to the company’s success?

At FHI, we use regular engagement surveys to get a pulse on how our employees are feeling and what their needs and goals are. We switched to these from our traditional satisfaction surveys because we realized how much more valuable engagement is than simple satisfaction. A satisfied employee might just be complacent, but an engaged employee is actively seeking out new opportunities to grow within the company.

Engagement has a huge impact on almost every facet of a company — profits, customer service, safety, and even ease of management. An engaged employee is involved in the company, enthusiastic about their work, and committed to the success of the company. In our survey, we can gauge these feelings by asking people to agree or disagree with a series of 12 questions.  The 12 questions come from Gallup, who we have partnered with to provide us the information about where we need to focus our effort. A few examples from the Gallup Q12 survey include:

• I know what is expected of me at work. 
  
  
• I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right. 
  
  
• At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day. 
  
  
• In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work. 
  
  
• My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person. 
  
  

When you measure employee engagement you can see where your team is thriving and where some people might need a bit more support. You can address each employee as an individual and show them you care about their development not just in the company, but in their personal pursuits as well. 

Reward and Recognize

No one wants their hard work to go unnoticed. It can make people feel invisible or undervalued when they go above and beyond on a project and never receive any type of thanks or recognition for their efforts. This is why it’s so important to always reward and recognize employees who meet or exceed their goals and who live out your company values every day.

Praise and recognition are the fuel that ignites a person’s fire to do even more to serve others internally and customers externally.

We love rewarding and recognizing our associates when they live out our purpose and demonstrate our values in the community. We believe this behavior belongs in a manager’s everyday playbook instead of just at annual performance reviews.

The greatest part of recognizing employees is that it doesn’t have to be limited to their productivity. An easy way to encourage people to live out your company values and be positive stewards of your brand is to bring attention to those who already do. When your employees know you’re always watching, they’re likely to go out of their way to impress you.

At FHI, we make it a point to remember everyone should be praised and recognized twice as much as they’re corrected. This helps to keep up morale and reinforces that you see the value of each individual team member and how they contribute to their team. To keep up with this rate of recognition, we like to use bright spots, monthly spotlights and PVV Cards.

• Bright spots are shout-outs for people who have made a memorable and measurable difference in our company through extraordinary service. This could be anything from providing excellent customer service to closing a new customer.
  
  
• Spotlights are our version of an employee of the month program. We like to spotlight one employee each month who exemplifies the FHI DNA.
  
  
• PVV (Purpose, Vision and Values) Cards are recognition cards given on the spot to recognize and promote the positive behaviors around our Purpose, Vision and Values. All associates stories who are recognized around our PVV are shared with the entire company.
  
  

An important aspect to remember about praising staff members is that not everyone will be comfortable with the same type of praise. Some people might love seeing their name and photo in the company-wide email, and others might prefer a personal pat on the back and a “good job” from their boss. The more you get to know your employees, the better you’ll be able to anticipate which type of recognition they respond to best.

Invest in Their Success

We believe in developing the whole person to ensure they reach their full potential on and off the job. This helps employees develop self-confidence, be willing to take on more responsibility, and come up with creative solutions to problems.

FHI offers a variety of programs that help us develop our associates and invest in their success. We have things like on-site technical training related to specific job roles; live and virtual training sessions that include corporate training and leadership development; a Virtual Training Platform with over 10,000 courses employees can take to further their skills and qualifications; and an off-site cost-covered technical skills training program.

One program that we find is most helpful is the life and leadership skills sessions. These sessions are open to everyone from our senior leadership to front-line associates and they cover four topics: servant leadership, productivity, customer service, and the law of connection. Each of these areas provides unique insights into different aspects of business and how employees can develop themselves to become stronger in each one.

Investing in employee development can even help you to retain your top talent long-term. It shows them you are equally invested in their career advancement and willing to offer resources to help them reach their goals. It also shows new hires that there’s plenty of room to grow within your company, and if they make their career with you, they won’t be stuck in an entry-level position forever.

Service-Focused Leadership Model

Despite what many people think, money only motivates so much. Plus, there’s always someone out there who can offer your employees bigger salaries or better benefits packages, which is why they need a deeper reason to stick with you.

We like to focus on providing opportunities for our employees to take on more responsibility and help others by leading teams, heading projects, and guiding customers. One way we facilitate this focus is by promoting from within as much as possible.

We’ve been very successful with promoting from within the organization in various departments and aspects of our company. In fact, 90% of our FHI leaders started their careers right here! Internal advancement is crucial to maintaining a healthy culture and a connection point with each and every associate a leader encounters.

It can be incredibly empowering for team members to see a chance to rise in the ranks of a company if they’re willing to work hard and stick around. This creates a drive in every employee to be self-empowered and productive so they might prove their ability to take on more tasks and lead teams. Having associates who are striving to make the company better means you will have employees ready when it comes to choosing new managers and supervisors who are qualified and dedicated to the company’s success.

Finally, promoting from within is the ultimate way to demonstrate the other three principles we’ve already discussed.

• It shows you see each person for their unique talents and want to help them use those skills to become a more engaged member of the company.
  
  
• It rewards hard work and dedication and by giving employees more autonomy and responsibility.
  
  
• It invests in your associates’ futures in a way that benefits you both and leaves them feeling grateful they chose a career with you.
  
  

These four simple ways we foster loyalty among our employees are why we have so many people looking to join our team. Start showing your employees some appreciation today and see how it can change your company culture.