With the unemployment rate at an 18-year low, the competition to attract and retain top talent has become increasingly challenging. Millennials now make up 75% of the workforce, so tailoring your benefits program to their needs is important.
Whereas previous generations valued health plans and 401ks, the new workforce sees these benefits as standard. They’re looking for employers that are going above-and-beyond traditional benefits to provide additional value.
In today’s post we’ll explore several types of employee benefits that appeal to the Millennial generation. We’ll look at:
Financial wellness and literacy programs
Student loan repayment assistance
Unlimited PTO plans
Flexible work schedules
Opportunities for advancement
Health and wellness benefits
1. Financial wellness and literacy programs
Financial wellness is the ability to manage short-finances while also saving for long-term goals. The Millennial generation struggles significantly with achieving financial wellness. Research by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that up to 61% of an average company’s workforce has fair to poor financial wellness.
Millennials are very concerned about financial wellness, with 64% stating they are stressed about their finances. With personal finance at the top-of-mind for many Millennials, it’s no surprise workplaces are beginning to offer financial wellness programs as a part of their overall benefits plan.
Research by Aon Hewitt reported that 77% of employers plan to offer some form of a financial wellness program in the coming years.
Some ways companies can approach financial wellness include:
One-on-one financial advice via a financial coach or investment advisor
Access to financial literacy apps or budgeting tools
Offering educational workshops, classes, or lunch-and-learns
401k education programs
2. Student loan repayment assistance
Research by Student Loan Hero found that having too much long-term debt was the top financial struggle of Millennials. Nearly 70% of college graduates have student loans, with the average undergraduate facing $30,000 in loans.
A survey by IonTuition found that Millennials are struggling to manage their student loans, with 37% of respondents stating they had fallen behind on student loan payments. The same survey found that 36% of respondents would prefer a student loan repayment assistance program over a 401k plan.
Student loan repayment assistance programs allow employers to match employee contributions to their loan repayments. These programs have the potential to make a big impact on the workplace satisfaction and overall wellness of Millennials, with research finding that such programs can reduce loan repayment time by four years.
According to SHRM, only 4% of employers offer student loan repayment assistance. This represents a significant opportunity for employers who want to become an employer of choice for top Millennial talent. Those interested in starting a student loan repayment assistance program can work with organizations like Peanut Butter, Tuition.io, or Gradifi.
3. Unlimited PTO Plans
Unlimited PTO, offering employees paid time off with no cap, first originated in Silicon Valley as part of the emerging startup scene. Startups offered this perk to help attract top talent they might otherwise have not been able to afford.
However, uncapped vacation time is slowly becoming more common. Many Millennials see unlimited PTO as a highly sought-after benefit that affords them and their families greater flexibility.
Research by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) indicates unlimited PTO programs are becoming more popular. General Electric recently implemented a “permissive time off” policy, which effects over 30,000 salaried employees in the U.S.
That being said, current research estimates the total percentage of companies in the U.S. offering unlimited vacation time at around 2%. A survey by HR association WorldatWork indicates that only 1% of large companies offer unlimited PTO.
Unstructured PTO policies are seen as a large value-add to employees, while costing employers little to roll-out and administer.
4. Flexible work schedules
Today’s workforce is demanding greater flexible in scheduled work hours. Work-life balance is a number one priority for Millennials, and they believe flexible work hours helps them achieve it.
Flexible work hours manifest in many ways. Some examples include:
Day-shifting (allow employees to work 7:00-3:00 or 10:00-6:00)
Remote work (allowing employees to work from home)
Summer hours (half day on Fridays during the Summer)
Allowing employees to come in late or leave early occasionally without taking PTO
Flexible work arrangements allow Millennials to better manage their careers and their families. According to a study by Bentley University, 77% of Millennials say that flexible work hours would make the workplace more productive for people their age.
In fact, being more flexible with work hours can actually help your employees become more productive. A research study by Stanford found that when compared to employees with traditional work hours, telecommuters completed 13.5% more calls than the office workers, performed 10% more work overall, left the company at half the rate of people in the office, and reported feeling more fulfilled at work.
When it comes to appealing to Millennial talent, flexible work schedules are an important component of the equation. McKinsey & Company found that millennials are more likely to accept a job offer from a company that offers flexible work schedules.
5. Opportunities for advancement
Millennials are looking for employers who provide them with continuous opportunities for advancement and professional growth. In fact, research by Gallup found that “opportunities to learn and grow” was rated as the most important factor Millennials looked for when applying for a job.
Studies show that 21% of Millennials left their job in the last year to do something else, a number that is three times higher than that of workers from other generations.
Addressing the Millennial desire for advancement can help your company attract, develop, and retain top Millennial talent. Some ways that companies can get intentional about opportunities for advancement include:
Allow your team members to cross-train or work in cross-functional departments
6. Health and wellness benefits
Millennials want wellness programs, but not in the traditional sense. Previously, company wellness programs focused on initiatives such as smoking cessation, disease management, and weight-loss challenges. However, today’s workforce demands a more modern, comprehensive approach to wellness.
When approaching wellness benefits, employers should take advantage of apps and mobile-friendly websites to help engage employees in health and wellness campaigns. Millennials check their phone an average of 50 times per day, so incorporating technology into your wellness program is key.
Some ways to build a modern Millennial-friendly wellness program include:
Provide treadmill workstations or standing desks
Offer onsite fitness programs like yoga or Zumba
Provide healthy snacks through a service like SnackNation
Integrate gamification in your wellness program by sponsoring companywide fitness challenges
Leverage wearables and mobile apps throughout wellness initiatives
Provide mental health education and support
Offer a nutrition and diet platform such as Zipongo
Launch a stress management program
Offer discounted gym memberships or fitness classes via a partner like ClassPass
Key Takeaways
In today’s post we explored several ways employers can integrate Millennial-friendly programs into their overall benefits strategy. Some key takeaways include:
Millennials now make up a majority of the workforce
The Millennial generation is looking for more than a standard benefits package from their employer of choice
Financial wellness programs address the Millennial need for improved financial literacy
Unlimited PTO plans are a cost-effective method to appeal to the Millennial desire for greater flexibility in the workplace
Flexible work schedules address the desire for better work-life balance
Opportunities for advancement is the number one concern for many Millennial job-seekers; career-pathing, mentoring, and coaching are all great ways to address this
Millennials demand a modern, technology-driven approach to health and wellness
Healthcare costs are rising with an 8% increase year over year. One innovative method employers are using to control costs while improving healthcare delivery is telemedicine. Telemedicine is an emerging technology field which facilitates two-way digital communications between patients and doctors. While a few years ago telemedicine was hardly on the radar of most businesses, it has become increasingly prevent in modern companies.
Since 2015, there has been a 26% increase in employers who offer these services. And according to the Mercer National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, almost 60% of America’s large employers currently provide telemedicine.
Diversifying your business’ healthcare offering will not only help you remain competitive in the quest for top talent, but also help you build a happier, more productive workforce. Telemedicine is a great place to start in addressing the changing needs of today’s healthcare consumer. In today’s post you’ll learn:
What is telemedicine?
How does telemedicine work?
What are the benefits of telehealth services?
How to implement a telehealth program at your business
What is telemedicine?
Telemedicine, also known as telehealth, can be defined as electronic two-way real-time communication between a medical professional and a patient. This communication might happen over a phone call, video call, or even a mobile chat. With telehealth services, your employees can speak with a medical professional on-demand via computer, phone, tablet, or a digital app on a mobile phone.
How does telemedicine work?
Telehealth is simple to roll-out and even easier for your team to being taking advantage of. Through a mobile or desktop telemedicine app, an employee initiates an appointment. The employee can select a phone call or video call. The telehealth app then directly connects the employee with a board-certified doctor. The doctors collects the necessary information, makes a diagnosis, and overviews next steps for the patient’s treatment. All the medical professionals employees access through telemedicine are board-certified doctors and are fully licensed to prescribe treatment and medications directly through the app.
What are the benefits of telemedicine?
Telemedicine affords your business and your employees many benefits including:
Reduced healthcare costs for employees and employers. Unnecessary doctor and ER visits cost both employers and employees millions of dollars a year. In fact, studies show that almost 75% of all doctor, urgent care, and ER visits are either unnecessary or could be handled safely via telehealth. Research estimates that telemedicine could potentially deliver more than $6 billion a year in healthcare savings to U.S. companies. The estimated return on investment for a telemedicine program was about $3.30 in cost savings for every $1 spent on program implementation, according to the Geisinger Health Plan study.
Reduced absenteeism. Employees frequently miss work for doctors appointments or illness. Telehealth helps combat this by providing 24/7 access to doctors, on-demand. In many cases, telemedicine eliminates the need for in-person office visits for simple ailments like the flu, ear infections, and sinusitis. In one survey, 21% of patients said not having to travel to the doctor’s visit was the top benefit of telemedicine.
Happier employees. Research shows that employees highly-value access to a telemedicine solution. A recent survey found that of those who have experienced real-time telehealth communication with a mobile app, 80% prefer this method to a traditional in-office medical visit.
Empowered employees. Telehealth services help empower employees to take charge of their health. In one study, 53% of patients felt that telemedicine increased their involvement in treatment decisions.
Healthier employees. As with any healthcare benefit, better health outcomes are the ultimate goal. Significant research has been done to determine telehealth’s effect on patient outcomes. A study on the Geisinger Health Plan, found that patient readmissions were 44% lower over 30 days and 38% lower over 90 days for patients enrolled in a telemedicine program.
How to Implement a Telehealth Program at Your Business
Many healthcare providers are now including a telehealth program along with their healthcare network. Another option is to roll-out a dedicated telemedicine program through a telehealth app provider, such as HealthiestYou. In most cases, a dedicated telehealth provider has better technology and much higher employee utilization rates than the telehealth features rolled into provider plans.
The right benefits broker can help you analyze your existing healthcare offering and determine the best plan to integrate telehealth services. Here at Launchways, we partner with Teledoc, HealthiestYou, and Best Doctors to help our clients roll-out high-impact telemedicine programs.
Key Takeaways
In today’s post we explored what telemedicine is, the key benefits it brings your workforce, and how to roll-out a telehealth program at your business. Here are some key takeaways:
Telemedicine is an emerging healthcare trend many employers are adopting to attract top talent and cut costs on healthcare spend
Telehealth services give your employees real-time access to board-certified doctors via a phone, desktop, or tablet
Telemedicine can help your organization cut healthcare costs while also improving healthcare outcomes for your team
Many healthcare providers offer a telemedicine feature, but a dedicated telehealth solution typically has better utilization rates
Your benefits broker can help you determine how to integrate telemedicine into your benefits program
Is your team using telemedicine? If not, do you plan to roll out a telehealth program this year? Let me know in the comments below.
Your management team’s emotional intelligence level can make or break your ability to build a thriving business. Emotional intelligence, a.k.a. “EQ,” is someone’s ability to understand and harness the power of emotion to build strong relationships, foster trust, mitigate conflict, and more. Teams with a high EQ enjoy higher productivity, better morale, and improved employee retention. On the other hand, teams with a low EQ can suffer from poor work ethic, high turnover rates, and low motivation.
In today’s post we’ll explore emotional intelligence and why it’s important to your business’ success. We’ll also provide strategies you can leverage to improve your EQ. You’ll learn:
What is emotional intelligence?
Why is emotional intelligence important in the workplace?
Strategies to improve your emotional intelligence
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your emotions and the emotions of others. In his book, Working With Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman outlines five categories of emotional intelligence including:
Self-awareness: understanding one’s own strengths and weaknesses, recognizing the impact of one’s actions on others, and receiving constructive criticism well.
Self-regulation: expressing one’s feelings with restraint and control.
Motivation: driven by one’s own ambition, resilience, and optimism.
Empathy: having the compassion and understanding to connect with others on an emotional level.
People skills: the ability to build rapport and trust with others.
Research on emotional intelligence by Harvard Business Review more broadly segments EQ into the areas of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Within each of these areas are several skills which allow for exceptional leadership in business. The graphic below overviews each of these areas and the competencies that fall within them.
Why is Emotional Intelligence Important (in General)
People with strong emotional intelligence are better able to regulate their own emotions and navigate the emotional responses of others. They reap many benefits including:
Recognizing and understanding their own emotional reactions
Managing, controlling, and adapting their own moods, reactions, and responses
Leveraging their emotions to motivate themselves, take action, commit, and work towards goals
Identifying the feelings of others, understanding their emotions, and using this information to relate to others more effectively
Building strong relationships, relating to others in social situations, leading, negotiating conflict, and working as part of a team
Why is Emotional Intelligence Important in the Workplace?
Emotional Intelligence plays a crucial role in business leaders’ ability to effectively manage and grow their business. Workplaces are, by nature, relationship-driven environments. They are places with a wide range of personalities, interests, and communication styles. Having a good EQ can help business owners better manage their workforce. Leaders with strong EQ reap many benefits including:
Being able to provide genuine feedback to employees
Fostering trust with employees and customers
Resolving conflict between team members
Setting realistic expectations and standards for your team
Constantly improving your management style
Research by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) found that lack of emotional intelligence is a leading cause of failure in executive positions. It identified three main reasons for failure: difficulty handling change, ineffective teamwork, and poor interpersonal relations. Additional research by Egon Zehnder International found that EQ was stronger at predicting executive success than IQ or job experience.
More generally speaking, research by The Carnegie Institute of Technology found that only 15% of financial success is attributed to technical skills. 85% of a typical person’s executive success is attributed to EQ skills such as the ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. Research by TalentSmart found that 90% of top-performers have good emotional intelligence.
In business, trust is key. Building trust with employees and customers is important for business leaders. In fact, research by Daniel Kahneman found that people would rather do business with someone they trust, even if it means paying a higher cost. High EQ is critical to building genuine relationships founded on trust and mutual understanding.
On the flip side, poor emotional intelligence can lead to a toxic work environment. Bad EQ in the workplace can be seen in bullying, harassment, turnover, and demotivated staff. It can manifest as insensitivity, arrogance, aggression, and volatility. Whereas a leadership team with high EQ can build a flexible environment, low emotional intelligence can lead to detrimental inflexibility and rigidity. In order to build a good company culture, emotional intelligence is crucial.
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence
At its core, emotional intelligence is effective communication between the emotional and rational parts of the brain. Unlike IQ, which remains relatively constant throughout your lifetime, EQ is something you can actively work on and improve. Some ways to improve emotional intelligence include:
Observe your feelings: as business leaders, work is extremely demanding. It’s easy to become so over-worked that you suppress or ignore your emotions entirely. It’s important to recognize that ignoring your feelings can cause these emotions to become stronger and less controlled over time. Rather than getting caught up in the day-to-day, when you’re having an emotional reaction to a situation, take a minute to recognize and address your feelings. Intentionally taking time to recognize and address your feelings can help build up your emotional intelligence over time.
Respond instead of react: recognize the difference between responding and reacting. Reacting is a knee-jerk response driven by emotions. Responding is a conscious, intentional process driven by understanding your feelings and deciding how to behave.
Be humble and keep things in perspective: having realistic expectations of yourself and others is a key part of EQ. If you think you’re better than others, you won’t be able to intentionally recognize and work on your own faults. You may also set unrealistic expectations for others, leading to disappointment. Instead, remain humble while recognizing your own unique set of strengths.
As you intentionally integrate these strategies into the way you think, your brain will begin to build new pathways and thought processes. Over time, your brain will adjust to use new EQ-driven strategies in your day-to-day work. Improving your EQ takes effort but is critical for anyone in a leadership position.
Key Take-Aways
In today’s post we explored what emotional intelligence is, why it’s important, and how to improve it. Here are some key take-aways:
Emotional intelligence is made up of several components including self-awareness, motivation, and social skills
Emotional intelligence provides many benefits including stronger relationships, better control over feelings, and improved ability to resolve conflicts
In the workplace, EQ is a stronger indicator of business success than IQ or technical skills
Unlike IQ, EQ can be actively worked on and improved over time
There are several strategies you can use to better leverage EQ-driven thought processes
For many growing businesses, employer branding may not be a top priority. But, it’s important to remember that your employees are your business’ number one resource. Your ability to attract and retain high-performers has a big impact on your bottomline. On top of this, a strong employer brand can reduce the high costs associated with recruiting and hiring by bringing more organic interest to your job openings. In fact, companies with strong employer brands enjoy 28% lower turnover rates, which presents an enormous cost-savings.
Many business owners have the misconception that you need huge name recognition and a large budget to build an employer brand. However, small fast-growing businesses have several advantages when it comes to employer branding. As a growing business, you’re more agile and flexible, so you can get more inventive with your employer branding tactics. Additionally, it’s important to remember you don’t need a large budget (or any budget) to get started with employer branding today.
In today’s post I’ll explore what it means to have a strong employer brand and how to use several no-to-low cost employer branding strategies including:
Improving your website career page
Leveraging social media
Taking a more strategic approach to your employee benefits package
Developing a more thoughtful hiring and onboarding process
By the time you’re done with this post you’ll walk away with a strong understanding of the building blocks that make up employer branding and a plan for several actionable tactics to begin improving your employer brand without increasing your budget.
What is an employer brand?
Your employer brand is your reputation as an employer and the value proposition you provide your employees. Your company mission, team, culture, and values make up your employer brand. An effective employer brand positions your company as a great place to work, which results in attracting and retaining top talent. Typically, the responsibility of the employer brand falls into the realm of HR, internal communications, and marketing. However, senior leadership plays a key role in shaping the employer brand.
As Jeff Bezos said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” In this sense, your employer brand is very similar. It’s what your employees say about your company when their friends ask what it’s like working there. It’s a culmination of everything being said about your company including:
Employer review sites
Word of mouth
Press
Why is your employer brand important?
Investing in your employer brand presents several benefits including:
Attracting top talent
Developing a better sense of camaraderie in your team
Improving your customer’s perception of your brand
Increased application rates, resulting in a wide pool of talent to choose from
Making your company stand out in a crowded candidate-driven job market
Differentiate your company from competitors
The graph below demonstrates how prioritizing employer branding is becoming increasingly important for CEOs of growing businesses.
Managing Your Employer Brand Online
In this section I’ll outline all the places your employer brand lives online and provide some tips on how you can improve in each of these areas.
Social Media
Social media sites are not just for engaging with customers—they’re also key for building your employer brand. In today’s Millennial-dominant workforce, many job seekers will look at a company’s social media feeds prior to applying to get a feel for the company’s personality and culture. If you’re not leveraging social media to humanize your brand—you’re missing out on a key opportunity.
Some of the easiest ways to begin using social media to build your employer brand include sharing photos of your team or sharing updates about your team’s activities. For example, why not mention your recent happy hour celebration in a Tweet? Or if several of your teammates attend a local conference, make sure someone takes a photo and shares it on your company Facebook page.
When it comes to social media, make sure you’re leveraging the key platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Career Sites
Career sites remain the top place job-seekers turn to discover new opportunities. You should be taking steps to manage and optimize your employer presence on these sites. The key players in this space include: LinkedIn, Glassdoor, CareerBuilder, and Indeed. Most of these sites offer a free employer profile which allows you to upload your logo, company description, and overview of company culture. Make sure your profiles on these sites are complete and up-to-date.
These sites are crucial because they allow employees to leave candid reviews of their experiences with employers. These reviews carry an enormous influence on your employer brand, with research by Edelman indicating that job seekers trust feedback from employees over the word of a CEO. Ensure you are monitoring, managing, and addressing the feedback received on these key career sites.
Job Postings
You should be using active job postings as an opportunity to strength your employer brand. A good job posting goes beyond explaining the job parameters to “sell” your company to prospective applicants. Here are some key factors you can include in your job postings:
Key company growth metrics/achievements
Overview of employee benefits offered
Why the company culture is unique
Opportunities for career progression/growth with the company
Your Website’s Career Page
Your website’s career page is the central hub of your employer brand. It’s your chance to share, in-depth, the unique company culture you’ve created and what it affords potential applicants. First, you should make sure that you have dedicated space on your website for a robust career page. Next, you should strive to optimize this page. We’ll cover this process more in-depth in the next section.
As with any branding efforts, consistency is key. You must ensure that you’re presenting a consistent message and clear employer value proposition across these key digital channels.
Optimizing Your Website’s Career Page
Your website’s career page is your best channel to communicate and drive forward your employer brand. As mentioned, it’s essential to have dedicated space on your website for a careers page. Here are some key elements to include on your careers page:
Key growth metrics/company achievements. If your company is experiencing significant growth year over year, highlight this on your career page. Similarly, if you’re on the Inc 5000 or have been highlighted in local press, these are great things to include too.
Real employee stories. Highlight quotes from top-performing employees that have experienced significant career growth at your company.
An overview of benefits you provide. Highlight, at a high level, all the value-adds you provide employees. These benefits can range anywhere from the “core” benefits you provide (health insurance, 401k, flexible hours, etc.) to add-ons (gourmet coffee, catered lunch on Fridays, monthly massages, etc.).
Your company’s core values. Your values are the heart and soul of your employer brand. It’s how your employee experience your company and realize their fit at the organization. Highlight each of your core values and what each one means to your employees.
Include real photos of your team. When it comes to your career page, generic stock photos won’t do. Make sure to include a few high-resolution photos of your team.
To give you some perspective, here are some examples of stellar career pages:
How to Leverage a Strategic Employee Benefits Package to Improve Your Employer Brand
The benefits you offer your team are core to your employer brand. If you haven’t taken the time to think about a strategy around employee benefits—you’re neglecting an opportunity to drive forward your employer brand. When it comes to benefits, you should aim to build a strategic benefits package that helps your organization become an employer of choice and attract top talent. Here’s a quick overview of the types of benefits you might opt to include in your plan:
Core Benefits
Health insurance
Vision
Dental
401k
Vacation/PTO
Cost-based Benefits
Formal training
Education stipend
Student loan reimbursement
Snacks
Gourmet coffee
Catered lunches
Massages, yoga classes, gym discounts or other wellness activities
As you can see, no matter what your benefits budget is, there are several high-value benefits you can implement at a low cost. The key to any high-impact benefits program is to have a clear strategy around it. The best way to do this is to understand your workforce. The benefits you offer must be in-line with the benefits your employees (and job candidates) want from an employer.
Research shows Millennials will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025. This means it has become increasingly important to tailor your benefits package to the changing desires of the next generation of workers. Research by Gallup indicates that over 50% of Millenials rate opportunites for learning and development as extremely important when deciding to apply for a job. In this case, a company with a younger workforce might opt to bypass a 401k but instead offer extensive paid training opportunities.
If you tailor your benefits package to your ideal workforce, it becomes a useful tool in driving forward your employer brand.
Building a Thoughtful Recruiting and Onboarding Process
Many employers underestimate the importance of a job-seeker’s application experience in the overall perception of the employer brand. In reality, every interaction a candidate has with your company from job postings, to the application interface, to your follow-up, to the interview process, has a significant impact on their perception of your employer brand.
For example, a job posting may peak a candidate’s interest, but if the job application software you use is clunky or confusing, they may abandon it entirely. If a candidate reviews your career site, social media, and core values but then doesn’t experience a smooth, respectful interview process to match it—they will not realize your employer brand. If a new-hire spends their entire first day filling out paperwork, you’ve just lost an enormous opportunity to drive forward your employer brand.
For these reasons, it’s essential your hiring and onboarding process are inline with the employer brand you’re crafting. Here are some tips:
Ensure your job application process is simple
Document a timeline of how all applicants should be responded to and what information they should receive
Craft an interview process that’s thoughtful, high-impact, and respectful to the candidate
Ensure all interviewers are well-versed in the company’s core values and comprehensive benefits offerings
Leverage new-hire onboarding technology that completes all necessary paperwork prior to your new team member’s first day—so you can start the relationship off on the right foot
Consider implementing HR all-in-one technology which delivers a smooth user experience from application all the way through onboarding
Key Take-Aways
In today’s post we explored why it’s important to invest in your employer brand and discovered several low-cost strategies to do this. Here are some key take-aways:
Your employer brand is a candidate’s perception of what it would be like to work at your company
A strong employer brand can help you attract top talent, reduce hiring and turnover costs, and build a more effective workforce
Your company mission, core values, and employee benefits are key to your employer brand
Ensuring a positive, consistent message across online channels is important to a strong employer brand
A strategic approach to employee benefits will help drive forward your employer brand
A thoughtful hiring and onboarding process is key to the realization of your employer brand
How do you prioritize strengthening your employer brand? Did any of the tactics outlined in this post stand out to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts—just drop them in the comments box below!
Employee engagement is key to your employees’ morale and productivity, which has an important impact on your bottomline. Understanding what employee engagement is and how to leverage effective employee engagement surveys is a great place to get started with creating a more engaged workforce. In this post I’ll explore why employee engagement is important, then outline a highly-effective employee engagement survey template, and finally provide step-by-step instructions on how to get started with quantifying and improving your company’s employee engagement.
What is employee engagement?
Employee engagement is the level of enthusiasm, dedication, and connection employees have to their organization and their work there. Employee engagement measures how motivated employees are to exceed performance expectations and indicates how committed employees are to staying with the organization for the long-term. Employee engagement is the direct results of company culture, management practices, and the overall work environment created.
Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement is important because engagement can have a big impact on your workforce’s productivity, which affects your bottomline. Several studies have correlated an engaged workforce with a multitude of business benefits. A survey of over 24,000 businesses conducted by Gallup found that companies in the top quartile of engagement average 18% higher productivity and 12% higher profitability than companies with poor engagement. An additional survey of over 600,000 employees conducted by the UK government found that companies with high employee engagement increased income by 19.2% while companies with low engagement saw revenue drop by 33% over the same period.
Research by CultureAmp also indicates that engaged employees are 20% more likely to recommend their employer on Glassdoor—a critical component to attracting top talent. Their research also showed that engaged employees are 30% less likely to be actively looking for another job.
Engaged employees:
Have higher job satisfaction
Are more committed to the company and its long-term goals
Are more likely to become high-performers
Are less likely to turnover
Want to succeed and want the organization to succeed
Are more willing to go the extra mile to help the company
Support the company’s mission and believe in the vision
Companies with high rates of employee engagement enjoy results like:
Decreased turnover rates
Increased productivity
Increased efficiency
Increased profits
Better ability to attract and retain top talent
Even with all the above benefits, many companies are not doing a great job at creating an engaged workforce. Studies by Gallup found that only 33% of employees are engaged at work. They also uncovered that organizations with a poorly engaged workforce experienced 30-50% higher turnover rates than companies with engaged employees. The good news is that there are several steps you can take to improve employee engagement at your company. This process begins will implementing highly-effective engagement surveys.
How to Get Started With Employee Engagement Surveys
Engagement surveys get a bad rap for being ineffective. This is usually because they’re too long, poorly designed, ineffectively distributed, or lack high-impact questions. However, with the right approach, engagement surveys can provide increased insight into your workforce’s engagement, productivity, and job satisfaction. Effective engagement surveys transform anecdotal employee experiences into hard data, which will allow you to strategically approach, monitor, and refine your employee engagement efforts.
Before customizing your survey questions, your first step should be to identify benchmark engagement levels. Data without the context of industry-relevant benchmarks will not provide useful insights. Because employee engagement varies widely with company industry and size, take these into account when researching benchmarks.
When designing your questions, remember there are several facets that play into an employee’s overall engagement level. These include employee opinion on management, overall work environment, relationships with coworkers, opportunities for advancement, and understanding and belief in the company mission. A good employee engagement survey should include questions that determine satisfaction in each of these areas.
Don’t forget that an employee engagement survey only matters if you plan to act on the results. In advance of conducting your survey, establish buy-in from leadership and put time on the calendar to review survey results.
Here are some key things to keep in mind when designing your employee engagement survey:
Before designing your survey, pinpoint industry-relevant employee engagement benchmarks
Establish buy-in from leadership before conducting an engagement survey
Include questions that cover all facets of employee engagement
Opinion on management
Work environment
Relationship with coworkers
Job enablement
Opportunities for advancement
Understanding company mission
12 High-Impact Employee Engagement Survey Questions (And Why They Work)
1. On a scale of 1-10, with “1” being very unlikely and “10” being very likely, how likely are you to recommend [Company Name] as great place to work?
A Net Promoter Score is a single-digit figure that summaries a customer’s satisfaction with your company. In the context of an employee engagement survey, you can reframe this question to uncover your employee workplace satisfaction, therefore creating an “internal” net promoter score. An employee’s likelihood of promoting your company as a good place to work is a strong indicator of their overall engagement level.
2. I receive recognition for a job well done.
Receiving praise and recognition is one of the strongest influencers of workplace satisfaction and employee engagement. It’s important to help employees understand how their work impacts the rest of the organization. This question can gauge employee satisfaction with the amount and quality of recognition they receive.
3. I trust my immediate supervisor/manager.
Trust is a crucial foundation for any productive manager/employee relationship. Employees and managers don’t have to be friends—but for it to be a positive relationship there must be a basic level of trust. Employees who don’t trust their manager will struggle to perform optimally and become engaged.
4. I trust the upper management/leadership team.
Similar to the previous question, an employee’s trust in upper management is critical for an engaging work environment. A high level of trust in company leadership indicates employees believe in the leadership team’s company vision and their ability to achieve it.
5. My coworkers are committed to doing quality work.
This question indicates an employee’s perception of the overall work culture. Environments where all employees are held accountable and motivated properly are the best for employee engagement. If employees perceive that their coworkers are not being appropriately held accountable, this can create a toxic work environment. The above question will gauge your employee’s perception of the work dynamic between employees.
6. My coworkers respect each other.
This is another question to help gauge the work environment. It’s important that your team is establishing mutual respect. If your workplace is filled with gossip, harassment, or other negative sentiments it can quickly create a toxic work environment. Use this question to gauge how positive the relationships between employees are.
7. In two years, I still see myself working at [Company Name].
This question can give some insight around your employee retention rate. If employees don’t envision a future with your organization, this indicates unhappiness with the workplace environment and an absence of transparent future career opportunities.
8. [Company Name] motivates me to go above and beyond what I would in a similar role elsewhere.
This question gets at your employee motivation levels. In organizations with high employee engagement, employees are motivated to go above and beyond because they believe in the mission of the organization and understand their important part in achieving this vision. If your employees do not feel motivated to go above and beyond you should identify opportunities to increase performance.
9. I have access to the tools, resources, and training I need to do my job well.
This question gets to the heart of job enablement at your organization. The point of this question is to understand if employees believe they have the resources they need to perform their job at the highest level.
10. I understand what I need to do to be successful in my role.
This question pinpoints if your employees’ job expectations are clear. If employees have a clear understanding of their success metrics, it gives their day-to-day work direction and purpose. It also instills a feeling of upward mobility which helps keep employees on board. If employees indicate their job expectations are unclear, this can indicate a poor relationship between management and employees.
11. I believe there are good career opportunities for me at [Company Name].
This question also hones in on employee perception of future opportunities. If employees perceive good future opportunities for themselves at your company they’re more like to be high-performers and much less likely to look for another job. If employees do not believe there are good opportunities for them then there could be a lack of transparency around growth opportunities or underinvestment in employee training and development.
12. Is there we could be doing better at [Company Name]?
In an employee engagement survey it’s always important to provide an open-ended question. The point of this question is to provide employees an opportunity to give candid, anonymous feedback. While this feedback won’t be quantified, it can provide some anecdotal evidence towards areas of your engagement strategy that could be improved.
How to Use This Employee Engagement Survey Template
Customize the questions with your company name. Also feel free to further customize the questions, omit ones that you don’t believe are relevant to your workforce, and add your own questions. Just remember to keep the survey relatively short (15 or less questions is ideal for maximum impact).
Determine how you will distribute your survey. The easiest way to distribute an engagement survey is digitally. Google Forms or SurveyMonkey are both great options for distributing your survey and analyzing the results.
It’s important to note that the most effective engagement surveys are completed anonymously. If the surveys are anonymous, employees are more likely to be honest and give candid feedback. No matter which platform you opt to send your survey through, make sure your survey does not require employees to entire their name or email address.
Distribute your survey via email. Including a note from the leadership team about the purpose of the survey can help drive forward your engagement vision. Make sure to follow-up with your employees several times to remind them to complete the survey.
After you’ve collected responses, analyze the results. Gather your leadership team to discuss the findings from your survey. Compare your engagement levels to industry benchmarks. Based off the results to specific questions, identify the biggest areas of opportunity for improvement. Create a plan of action as to how you’ll address these areas.
Set a timeframe for when you will distribute another engagement survey to measure changes in engagement (three to six months is ideal).
Key Take-aways
As you can see, employee engagement surveys can be effective if they’re done right and include high-impact questions. Here are some key take-aways from today’s post:
Employee engagement creates a happier, more productive workforce.
Establish buy-in from your leadership team about the importance of employee engagement.
Always compare your engagement data against industry benchmarks.
Use short, high-impact surveys (and make sure they’re anonymous to receive honest feedback).
Use the results of engagement surveys to discover areas of opportunity and create an action plan for increasing employee engagement.
Do you already use an employee engagement survey? Will you start regularly distributing and analyzing engagement surveys? How important do you think employee engagement is in the modern workplace? I’d like to hear your thoughts—drop them in the comments box below.
Creating career paths for employees can be a challenging but worthwhile initiative. In today’s ultra-competitive job market, it’s becoming more and more important to invest in your employees, so you can retain them in the long-term. The problem is, many companies are simply not doing a great job at providing tangible vertical career paths for top-performing employees.
A recent survey by Gallup found that 93% of people advance their career by taking a position with another company. This means that just 7% of employees are being promoted internally. For high-growth companies, recruiting might seem like the only option to quickly obtaining the best talent.
However, promoting internally can save you the time and money that would traditionally be spent on recruiting external candidates. Beyond this, internally recruited employees typically have a far shorter “ramp-up time”—meaning they can start making a big impact in their new position immediately.
In this post I’ll explore the benefits of creating clear career paths for your employees and outline a step-by-step process to launch your own career pathing program.
What is Career Pathing
Career pathing is a structured employee development program which helps employees visualize career progression within a company. When done right, career pathing not only helps employees see their potential for career progression, but also sets clear milestones and provides the development opportunities necessary to reach these goals.
Career pathing involves, on an employee-by-employee basis, taking an inventory of career aspirations, skills, necessary knowledge, experience, and personal aptitudes. This information is then used to create a custom plan for achieving what is necessary in these areas to reach key career milestones.
As mentioned, organizations with the most successful career pathing programs provide employees with the support they need to develop the necessary skills and aptitudes in accordance with their career path.
Benefits of Career Pathing
For any growing business, implementing a formal career-pathing program is essential to developing and retaining a high-performing workforce. Investing in the creation of a strategic career-pathing program can bring your company many benefits including:
● Improved ability to attract top talent: In today’s competitive job market, many growing businesses are struggling to attract top talent. A robust talent development program can play a big role in your ability to bring in the right people for the right jobs.
● High employee engagement and improved employee performance: with effective career-paths in place, employees are incentivized to become top-performers and reach their career milestones. A motivated, engaged workforce means better outputs for your company.
● Reduced employee turnover: In organizations without clear career paths, entry-level employees are more likely to become stagnant in their roles and begin looking for other opportunities. This turnover can quickly become costly. By creating crystal-clear career paths, you give employees a vision for their career progression and help incentivize them to stay onboard for the long-term.
● Increase diversity in the leadership team: by investing in and recruiting internally, you ultimately build a more diverse leadership team.
Setting Goals for Your Career Pathing Program
Before implementing any new employee development initiative, you should set goals for your program. For example, if your company struggles with turnover, reducing turnover might be a good objective for your career pathing program. Or, if your team struggles with productivity issues, then increasing employee engagement might be a good objective.
To develop your goals, it helps to sit down with the leadership team of your business and discuss what they believe are the biggest retention and engagement challenges. After this conversation, decide on and document the goals of your new program.
Some examples of career pathing program goals might include:
● Build a strong internal pipeline of highly-qualified talent
● Reduce employee turnover
● Increase employee engagement
● Increase diversity in the upper management team
Creating Your Career Pathing Program
1. Create Career Roadmaps
For each of the key function areas of your organization, you should create a career roadmap. This is typically a graphic or diagram which represents the potential vertical and horizontal position changes with any given business function (i.e. marketing, sales, HR, operations, customer support, etc.). This framework will be the cornerstone of your career pathing program, as it highlights the opportunities for vertical employee career progression.
2. Create Position Profiles
Next, you should create “position profiles” for each of the roles highlighted in your career roadmaps. For each role you should outline and document the core responsibilities, skills, and general requirements. To add clarity to your career pathing program, you can outline more detailed specifications for each role. These might include recommended or required education, technical trainings, licenses, and certifications necessary for success.
3. Define Performance Standards
Next, it’s important to document expected performance standards. To do this, you should document the behaviors and benchmarks that are typically shown by top performers at your company. These behavioral competences will translate across all horizontal and vertical role changes.
4. Incorporate Training and Development
To further enhance your career paths, you should identify key training and development milestones for each position profile. These milestones might include leadership training courses, cross-functional training, revenue responsibility, or international exposure. Outlining key development experience in relation to relevant career paths will help upper management have more meaningful career progression discussions with employees.
Communicating Your Career Pathing Program
As with all employee engagement programs, effective communication is key. Sharing your career development philosophy with staff is a great first step in launching your new program. You should make it clear that you value your team and are committed to investing in their growth.
In organizations with particularly effective career pathing programs, providing new-hires with a document that overviews their progression possibilities is a commonly used tactic. This document should overview key progression milestones such as clearly-defined goals, timely training opportunities, and dates for performance reviews.
Establishing buy-in from your management team is also important in facilitating a new career pathing program. Managers should be kept in the loop on career pathing objectives and be encouraged to continuously have candid conversations with employees about their career aspirations.
Setting Up Systems to Optimize Your Career Pathing Program
When launching a career pathing program, you should establish systems to track and optimize its performance. A great way to do this is to conduct a company-wide survey. You might choose to do a career development survey before launching your program and then do another survey a few months after launch. Completing an initial survey will mean you’ll have benchmark data to compare.
In additional to using career development surveys, in the months after implementing a career pathing program you should also monitor changes in turnover rates and employee performance metrics.
Career Paths Key Takeaways
Developing and implementing a proactive career pathing program isn’t easy, but it can have a big impact on your organization’s long-term growth. Here are some key take-aways from today’s post:
• Career pathing affords many benefits including higher retention rates, increased engagement, reduced talent acquisition costs, and increased leadership diversity.
• Documenting career roadmaps and clear position profiles is the best way to start a career pathing program.
• Communicate your career development philosophy across all levels of your organization.
• Establish buy-in from management so employees can have more productive career path conversations.
• Leverage a career development survey to benchmark and monitor the impact of your career pathing program.
Does your company provide clear opportunities for career progression? If not, do you think you’ll implement a career pathing program in 2018? Drop your thoughts in the comments box below.
In today’s market, it’s becoming more difficult to attract and retain top talent. Offering competitive benefit packages has become increasingly important for organizations looking to add top-performers to their team. Standard benefits packages with medical, 401K, and two weeks vacation are quickly becoming overshadowed by more diverse, unique, and impactful employee benefits packages. One unique benefit competitive companies have begun to offer is unlimited PTO.
The concept of “unlimited PTO”—offering employees paid time off with no cap—originated in Silicon Valley as part of the emerging startup scene. Startups offered this perk to help attract top talent they might otherwise have not been able to afford. However, what was once a “trendy” employee benefit limited to emerging startups has now begun to appear in more established companies. Research by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) indicates unlimited (or unstructured) PTO programs are becoming more popular. In fact, General Electric recently implemented a “permissive time off” policy, which effects over 30,000 salaried employees in the U.S.
That being said, current research estimates the total percentage of companies in the U.S. offering unlimited vacation time at around 2%. A survey by HR association WorldatWork indicates that only 1% of large companies offer unlimited PTO.
With such a small amount of companies offering unlimited PTO, it could be your secret weapon to build an attractive, high-impact benefits package that stands out to top candidates. However, there are several pros and cons to implementing an unlimited PTO policy.
In this post I’ll explore the pros and cons of an unlimited PTO policy, the financial implications of unlimited PTO, tips on deciding if unlimited PTO is right for your organization, and guidelines to successfully implement an unlimited PTO policy at your company.
Benefits of an Unlimited PTO Policy
Implementing an unlimited PTO policy can have several positive impacts on your organization including:
Less time spent managing accrued time off. With unlimited PTO, HR staff is no longer making constant changes to employee PTO for taking a half day off, a one hour dentist appointment, etc. They also no longer have to field inquiries from employees about how much time off they’ve accumulated, or what they have left for the year.
Reduced financial liability. Under an unlimited PTO plan you no longer have to pay out accrued, unused PTO when an employee leaves the company. Research conducted by Oxford Economics found the average vacation liability per employee to be $1,898. This translates to $65.6 billion in accrued time-off liabilities on the books of U.S. companies.
Fewer time off conflicts. In organizations with “use-it-or-lose-it” PTO policies, there is often a mad dash in November and December to use up any leftover PTO. This can cause severely understaffed departments at year-end. With unlimited PTO, there’s no end of year rush to use up expiring PTO.
Employees take off time when they actually need it. Under traditional PTO plans employees (especially those with young children) are inclined to save up their PTO days in case of unexpected illness or another family emergency. However, it’s important to encourage employees to take time off to relax and rejuvenate, so they can function optimally when at work. Unlimited PTO policies help encourage this behavior.
Attracting and retaining top talent. Most high-performing employees are self-sufficient and self-motivated. This means they appreciate work environments built on personal accountability, trust, and autonomy. Unlimited PTO programs can help foster a work environment where top talent thrives.
Empowering employees. Motivation studies indicate that when employees feel trusted, their motivation, morale, and productivity increase substantially. Unlimited PTO can help foster an environment of trust.
Challenges of an Unlimited PTO Policy
While there are several pluses to implementing unlimited vacation time, there are also several challenges related to this policy including:
New logistics. Although an unlimited PTO plan might eliminate your team’s need to meticulously track each hour taken off, you’ll still have to have a system in place to track PTO days used.
Policy abuse. When it comes to unlimited vacation time, there’s always a risk of policy abuse. Many companies worry that employees will take off frequently or take off for long periods of time. This policy abuse can have an impact on the company through performance problems and project delays.
Low policy usage. In some cases, an unlimited PTO policy may discourage employees from taking time off. Some organizations with unlimited PTO have found that unclear expectations around what amount of PTO is appropriate have encountered issues with employees taking off less than what is recommended. In organizations that prioritize work-life balance, this can be a potential con.
Unmanaged PTO. Unlimited PTO can quickly become unmanaged PTO if the proper procedures are not in place. A more formal time-off policy means more formal procedures around how vacation time is requested, approved, and tracked.
Unclear expectations for employees. In some cases, employees are unsure what amount of vacation time their manager finds acceptable under an unlimited PTO policy. In highly competitive organizations, employees might fear taking any time off. This creates a stressful, highly toxic work environment.
How to Decide if Unlimited PTO is Right for Your Business
Several small-to-mid-sized businesses have tested unlimited PTO policies at their organization to see how it would impact employee engagement and retention. Most organizations that implement an unlimited PTO policy find their employees take off roughly the same amount of PTO as the year prior. Studies have found employees at organizations with unlimited PTO are taking off between two and three weeks of vacation annually, on average. This figure includes time-off for vacation, personal reasons, and sick days.
When employers are considering implementing unlimited PTO they often fear employees will take off for extended vacations. However, organizations with unlimited PTO have not found this to be the case. More common is that employees are taking one or two day tips, long weekends, or extending holidays rather than leaving for long periods of time.
Surveys ranked unlimited PTO as the third most popular employee benefit at organizations that offered it. Unlimited PTO came in just behind health insurance and 401k plans. This means unlimited PTO beat out vision insurance, dental insurance, and professional development as the more desired benefit.
Whenever you’re thinking about offering an additional employee benefit or perk, you should consider if it’s inline with your company’s values. Offering unlimited PTO might be right for your organization if you believe strongly in the following values:
Autonomy
Trust
Freedom
Mutual Respect
Accountability
Work-life balance
Beyond core values, you’ll also have to consider industry limitations. For example, businesses in the retail and manufacturing industries have a difficult time implementing unstructured PTO policies.
Also, when you’re considering changing your benefits program, it’s important to consider the make-up of your workforce. Would your employees find an unlimited PTO program valuable? In organizations with a younger workforce, unlimited vacation plans may provide a huge value. However, in organizations within more structured industries (such as finance or healthcare), employees might prefer the traditional PTO plan they’re used to.
Building Your Unlimited PTO Policy
If you’ve decided you’d like to roll out an unlimited PTO policy to your employees, you’ll need to make some decisions about the structure of your policy. As you go about creating a formal written policy, here are some questions you can answer to begin formulating an outline for your new policy:
What will you call the policy? “Unlimited PTO” or “Unlimited Vacation” might be too ‘startupy’ for an established business. Some alternatives might include “Flexible PTO” or “Self-Managed PTO.” What you the call the program will greatly impact how employees and job candidates perceive it.
Will you offer a required minimum amount of PTO per year?
Will you provide guidelines as to what amount of annual PTO is recommended or acceptable?
Will you require employees to submit time-off requests or let them entirely self-manage their PTO?
If time-off requests are required, what process should employees follow?
Will you require employees to submit a work completion plan for longer time-off requests?
How will employees be held accountable for project deadlines and general job performance?
What system will you use to track PTO usage so you can evaluate your new unlimited PTO policy’s effects?
Will you require employees to designate someone to take over their responsibilities in their absence?
Considering and answering these questions is a great first step in building a formal unlimited PTO policy.
How to Implement an Unlimited PTO Plan at Your Company
Once you’ve make decisions about the structure of your new PTO plan and created a formal written policy, there are several key things you should consider before implementing the new plan.
When switching from a traditional PTO plan to unlimited, long-term employees may see it as a loss of deferred compensation from accrued time-off. To combat this, institute a process to offer payouts for accrued time-off when the new PTO plan is rolled out. Certain states have strict regulations over pay-outs regarding PTO, so make sure you’re being compliant.
Give advanced notice to employees that a new benefit type will be rolled out soon. Explain the impact of the new PTO policy and how it will become part of the company’s culture.
Create, document, and distribute a written policy that outlines the structure of your unlimited vacation policy. Make sure to include details on eligibility, the proper procedure to request time off, and any rules on how this benefit will be managed. Make sure to put this new policy in your employee handbook.
Educate management staff about the new policy and how to administer it in accordance with your new documented policy.
Put systems in place to track the new PTO policy usage. Even if employees are not held accountable to a specific number of vacation days per year, it’s still important to have a system in place to track vacation time. This will allow your team to monitor trends over time and watch out for over or under-usage.
Remember that unlimited PTO does not have to mean “unmanaged PTO.” You can offer your employees unlimited PTO but still hold them accountable for appropriate request-off procedures and accountability protocols.
Key Takeaways
In today’s post, I explored the pros and cons of unlimited PTO plans and offered some guidance in selecting if this policy is right for your organization. Here are some key take-aways from today’s post:
Unlimited PTO can reduce your financial liabilities, empower your team, and help you attract top talent.
An unlimited PTO plan presents several potential challenges including unmanaged processes, policy abuse, and unclear expectations.
When deciding if unlimited PTO is right for your company make sure to consider your company values, industry limitations, and workforce demographics.
When implementing a new PTO policy, it’s crucial to formulate and document a formal, written policy.
What do you think: is unlimited PTO a good or bad idea? Does it work for specific companies but not others? Drop your thoughts in the comments box below!
It’s not uncommon to hear about large cyber attacks on high-profile companies like Target or Sears. For many organizations, hearing about these attacks has raised awareness about the potential threat of a cyber attack.
However, recent surveys by the Small Business Authority and the National Cybersecurity Alliance suggest that many small business owners operate under the false assumption they are safe from the threat of a cyber attack.
A common misconception is that hackers only target large organizations. The truth is, businesses of any size can be targeted. And when it comes down to it, small business are less likely to have the correct processes in place to protect themselves from a cyber threat.
Studies by the Small Business Authority indicate that many small businesses are grossly underprepared to prevent and/or diffuse a cyber threat. For example:
Less than 50% of small businesses have cyber security measures in place
Of the 50% of businesses with cyber security measures, a majority of the protections are rudimentary at best
Only 25% of small business owners have had an outside source test their computer systems to ensure they’re hacker-proof
40% of small businesses do not have their data backed up in more than one location
Small Doesn’t Equal Safe
More often than not, small business owners believe they are not at risk for cyber threats. In fact, despite wide-spread cyber attacks in recent years, 85% of small business owners believe their business is safe from hackers, viruses, malware, or a data breach.
Although many business owners mistakenly believe hackers would prefer to target large organizations, this is entirely untrue. A cyber attack can affect any organization of any size at any time if the appropriate protective measures are not taken. In fact, a study by Symantec found that 40% of cyber attacks are against organizations with fewer than 500 employees.
The Effect of a Cyber Attack on Your Bottomline
The fact of the matter is that a cyber attack can have devastating consequences for your organization. According to Kaspersky Lab, the average cost of a cyber attack to a small-to-medium-sized business is +$200,000. This same study found that 60% of businesses that experienced a cyber attack closed permanently within six months of the attack.
The unfortunate truth is that a majority of these attacks could have been prevented with the appropriate precautions in place.
10 Steps You Can Take Today to Prevent Cyber Attacks
Even if you don’t have the resources to overhaul your cybersecurity measures, there are many steps you can take to increase your security. Here are ten steps you can take today to lower your risk of a cyber attack:
Train employees in basic cybersecurity principles.
Install and regularly update antivirus and antispyware software on every computer used at your business.
Use a firewall for your internet connection.
Download and install software updates for your operating systems as soon as they become available.
Make backup copies of important business data and information.
Control physical access to your computers and network components.
Secure your Wi-Fi networks. If your workplace has a Wi-Fi network, make sure it is secure and hidden.
Require individual user accounts for each employee.
Limit employee access to data and information and limit authority to install software.
Regularly change your passwords, and make it mandatory for all employees to change their password every three months.
Cyber Security Key Takeaways
Any size business can be affected by a cyber attack
Most small business owners do not have the appropriate procedures and precautions in place to protect their business from cyber threats
A cybersecurity attack can have a detrimental financial impact on your business
There are small steps you can take today to reduce your risk of falling victim to a costly cyber attack
Your employee compensation strategy is an important component of your company’s overall hiring strategy. You already understand that compensation is very important to be able to hire and retain top talent. What you might not know is that there are some simple strategies you can use to increase the value of your compensation without increasing base salaries. In today’s post I’ll explore how to understand your total compensation package and offer six unique strategies to increase the value of your total compensation offered.
Understanding Total Compensation
When considering making changes to your compensation strategy, it’s important to first understand the difference between base salary and total compensation.
Base salary is the amount per hour or year an employee is paid. This is the figure that appears on the employee’s paycheck. This number does not include bonuses, benefits, or any other perks.
Total compensation is everything that an employee receives in exchange for working for your company. This figure includes base salary, bonuses, incentives, benefits, on-site amenities, and any other perks you offer.
Some typical benefits induced in total compensation:
Health insurance
Vision and dental insurance plans
Retirement plans
Performance bonuses
There are many creative ways that companies add additional value to their total compensation package. Here are just a few:
Gym memberships
On-site child care
Casual dress code
Flexible schedules
Creating Goals for Your Compensation Strategy
When you’re considering making changes to your company’s compensations strategy, there’s a couple of key things to keep in mind:
First and foremost, employees must feel they’re being compensated fairly. If employees don’t feel this way, high turnover is inevitable.
Your compensation strategy should ensure employees are invested in the long-term success of the company.
Communicating your company’s benefits and perks programs to employees will help them better understand the value of their total compensation package.
When creating your total compensation package you should set one or two goals. This helps make sure that as you add incentives to the package, they’re in-line with your overall compensation goals. Here are some examples of goals related to total compensation:
Recruit great talent
Motivate employees
Reward top-performers
Reduce employee turnover
Improve your career brand
Six Creative Compensation Tactics
Now that you understand total compensation and have set some goals for your compensation strategy, you can get to work building your total compensation package. Here are six unique compensation tactics you might opt to include:
1. Delayed signing bonuses
Many companies offer a large signing bonus as a particularly enticing component of the compensation package. However, a highly-effective yet often-overlooked compensation strategy is to offer a deferred bonus. For example, offer a $5,000 signing bonus up front with an additional $5,000 bonus granted at the six-month mark. This way the signing bonus works not only as a compensation tool but also as an employee retention tool.
2. Think Beyond Cash Incentives
Rather than offering a performance-based cash incentive, consider offering a different incentive such as an annual company trip. Other great ideas for incentives include: bonus vacation time, sports-related activities such as group outings to a game, or free catered lunch. Any of these incentives can add variety to total compensation and provide tangible incentives for employees to work towards.
3. Employee Stock Ownership Programs (ESOPs)
In an employee stock ownership program you offer employees stock in the company as a benefit or performance-based bonus. This program helps align an employee with the long-term company vision, as they become personally invested in the company’s growth.
4. Phantom Equity
Unlike ESOPs, phantom equity does not transfer any of your company ownership to employees. Rather, it’s a contractual agreement which gives your employees a right to a certain percentage of the profits/proceeds of your company. This process allows you to incentivize long-term commitment and high performance without giving up any ownership of the company.
5. Employee Discount Program
An employee discount program is a great way to provide additional incentives beyond an employee’s base salary. Employee discount providers will partner with your organization to offer your employees competitive discounts on retail goods, phone bills, hotels, and much more. Studies show that Millennials, who are often on a tight budget, are particularly enticed by attractive employee discount programs.
6. Paid Training Stipend
Including a training stipend in an employee’s compensation package accomplishes three things:
Shows your employees that you want to invest in them and their career success. According to a study done by Deloitte, most loyal employees believe their company offers a lot of training and support.
Develops your employees, so they can perform their job more effectively and become strong leaders.
Increases the total compensation value of your employee benefit package.
Employee Compensation Key Takeaways
Here are some key take-aways from today’s post:
When thinking about compensation, you must consider the total value of your compensation package, not just the employee’s base salary.
When discussing compensation strategy, it’s important to have clear goals in mind.
A competitive compensation strategy will help your company attract, develop, and retain the best talent.
Continuous communication around the total compensation package is key.
It’s only February and “employee retention” and “employee engagement” are already emerging as top HR buzzwords of 2018. In this post I’ll explore ten data-backed reasons why employee retention must be at the top of your priority list this year.
1. The Real Cost of Employee Turnover
A study by the American Center for Progress indicates it can cost up to 20% annual salary to replace a mid-level employee. That means replacing a manager making $40,000 would cost your business $8,000! And these figures increase substantially for high-level positions. CAP estimates the cost to replace an executive level employee to be 213% of annual salary. This translates to $213,000 in expenses to replace an executive making $100,000.
Beyond these alarming stats, there are several other costs associated with employee turnover. Some indirect costs of employee turnover include:
Onboarding and training a new employee
Lost productivity
Negative employee morale
Proactive investments in employee retention can save your organization the significant financial burden that comes along with turnover.
2. Time Value of Employees
It’s important to think about your employees as appreciating assets; the longer they’re part of your team, the more value they provide. As employees become increasingly familiar with the systems, products, processes, and teammates at your organization, they’ll drive more value. The figure below demonstrates this phenomenon.
Figure 1: Economic Value of an Employee to the Organization over Time (C) Bersin by Deloitte
If you have to replace a top performer, it could take their replacement years to scale up to the same level of productivity. When employees turnover, you’re losing the value from all the time, money, and other resources you’ve invested in them.
3. It’s a Job-Seeker’s Market
For companies with high turnover, replacing employees has become increasingly difficult due to jon market conditions. Extremely low unemployment rates (4.1% as January 2018) has a created a “job seeker’s market”. In a job seeker’s market, attracting and hiring talent becomes more difficult because candidates hold most of the power throughout the search and negotiation processes. In this job market, employee retention should be a top priority as replacing turned over employees will be incredibly costly and time-consuming.
4. Increasing Turnover Rates
The Burea of Labor Statistics shows increasing quit rates over the past four years. As this trend continues, employers need to be more vigilant of turnover. One cause for increased turnover is the larger presence of Gen Y and Gen Z in the workforce. On average, 60% of Millennials are open to a new job opportunity and 21% of Millennials have changed jobs in the past year. In today’s workplace, employee retention efforts are a critical component to tackling increasing turnover rates.
5. Tough Competition
Small-to-mid-sized businesses are often competing against big-name players in the space. Sometimes it seems like these larger players have infinite resources: more resources, more money, a bigger sales/marketing budget, and more. But you just might have an underestimated your biggest competitive advantage: your team! For small businesses, a stellar team can be the differentiator between you and major competitors. Investing in employee retention will mean you can better attract, develop, and retain your top performers.
6. Employee Morale
Frequent turnover can have a negative impact on your entire team’s morale. When team members see frequent turnover they can lose faith in the organization. A more intentional approach to employee retention can help avoid negative morale.
7. Protect Your Greatest Assets
For any business, your two more valuable assets are your people and your cash. Paying attention to employee retention can help you protect both! A strategic approach to retention can help you protect your cash by avoiding the financial consequences of employee turnover (recruiting costs, employee training, lost productivity, etc.). For small businesses, anticipating and managing cash flows can be a challenge. Strategic employee retention helps prevent unexpected changes to cash flows (for example, a top sales performer quitting). Additionally, a high-impact employee retention program helps you invest in and retain the top performers that help your business thrive.
8. Good People Practices Directly Correlate to Financial Gains
High-impact employee retention practices have been shown to directly correlate with increased revenues. In a case study conducted by Maia Josebachvili, she estimates the purposeful onboarding and retention of a top sales performer would bring in an additional $1,300,000 in revenues over a three-year period.
Figure 2: via Maia Josebachvili.
9. Customer Success
When you’re unable to retain employees, you’ll constantly be onboarding and training new employees. And when several inexperienced employees are working, mistakes are more likely. These mistakes can ultimately harm relationships with customers. Beyond this, when a customer’s point-of-contact changes, they take notice and ask why.
10. Your Employer Brand
A study by Jobvite showed that 59% of job seekers research companies on social media and career sites prior to applying. If your company neglects employee retention, you’re more likely to accumulate less favorable reviews on Glassdoor, Indeed, and other career sites. Potential job candidates may be skeptical of a company with high turnover. These reviews can have a big impact on your ability to attract talent in the future.
Employee Retention Key Takeaways
Here are some key take-aways from this post:
Neglecting employee retention can have a big impact on your bottomline.
Replacing turned over employees is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.
Your workforce is one of your company’s greatest assets, and it should be invested in accordingly.
A great retention strategy can pay off with big financial gains.
![A Simple Yet Effective Employee Engagement Survey You’ll Actually Use [Template]](https://www.launchways.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Employee-engagement-survey-template-1.png)
