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ATTRACTING and keeping young, skilled employees is important and often difficult for today’s beef industry businesses operating up and down the supply chain.
Following the tips below will help increase the satisfaction of your employees with their job, and as a result lower recruiting costs and make your company more productive.
Employers face major challenges when they consider the increasing difficulty of finding skilled people, a younger workforce with different attitudes about work, and a growing population of older workers heading toward retirement.
As a manager, finding or grooming a ‘stellar’ employee can be one of your biggest challenges. But once you have a ‘rock star’ on your staff, don’t think your work is done. Keeping great employees happy is often overlooked, but should be one of your top priorities every day.
Fortunately, with a bit of insight and attention, keeping your top talent will be a rewarding and profitable to your business. Here’s how:
Keep Your Distance
Micro-managing is an employee’s worst enemy, yet loads of managers still let the habit take over when working with their teams. Giving your employees enough space and empowering them to learn in their own way is a great way to keep your highest achievers engaged.
By giving your employees autonomy to approach an aspect of the job in a way that made sense and giving them the power to make changes, your employees will immediately became more invested in their role.
Get Involved
While it’s great to avoid hovering over your employees, it’s also important not to make them feel completely ignored.
Although employees like to know you trust them to do their jobs without constant monitoring, they also like to know you actually understand what they do every day and are available for guidance if they need it. The stability of scheduled check-ins shows them you value their input and care about their success.
Acknowledge them
Give them far more praise and recognition that is a) truly deserved and b) given in the way they like to receive it.
Ask for Help
It’s difficuIt to define when ‘asking for help’ became branded as a sign of weakness, but it’s a trend which is starting to wane.
Don’t hold back on employees who are always asking for more responsibility and extra projects. They are sponges and want to learn as much as they can. Consider asking them for help with projects to get some relief from when your workload is overflowing.
Showing your employees you value their skills and potential is a powerful gesture. Don’t be afraid to ask for help occasionally and you’ll find your employees are more invested in their future with you.
Lead and Reward
As your employees’ manager, make sure you make it a priority to coach and develop your excellent staff by giving them feedback continuously. The manager and employee relationship is critical factor when it comes to retention.
For most people, career opportunities are just as important as the money they make. Recent survey results indicated that a majority would consider leaving their present employer for another job with the same benefits if new job provided better career development and greater challenges.
Unfortunately skilled people in the meat and livestock industry will not remain in a job if they see no future in their current position. To eliminate the feeling of being in a dead-end job, every position should have an individual development plan.
As a manager you should focus on maximising their potential and keeping them motivated and engaged.
These days, it’s rare for someone to stay at a company for three years, let alone 30, but that doesn’t mean managers are powerless to keep employees engaged and interested. By giving your team members the autonomy and confidence to do their best work and making sure they know you’re there for support, you’ll keep your best and brightest around for the long haul.
Source: AWX Agri – Partners in People.
