SMEs & staff retention: 2 budget-friendly strategies that work

SMEs & staff retention: 2 budget-friendly strategies that work

The latest Sensis Business Index (SBI) survey found one quarter of all Australian small and medium businesses believe the economy is growing, while the net balance score of +9 is the best in four years.

Such upbeat perceptions of the economy come following news that the unemployment rate is now at a four-year low and, perhaps in response to the positivity seen around them, staff turnover is rising.

A recent NAB report, titled Moments That Matter: Understanding Australian SMEs, shows that 46% of SMEs believe it is hard to compete with big corporations for highly skilled workers. In a market that’s confident and creating jobs, it’s little surprise people want to explore other opportunities. But as a business owner, how can you hold onto your top talent?

A competitive salary and impressive work-life balance sound like good starting points, but they aren’t enough to keep your best employees. That’s good news for the many SMEs that struggle to match the salaries and benefits offered by larger corporates.

According to our talent management survey of 1,516 people – of whom a significant number worked for SMEs – 61 per cent will look for another job in order to secure more challenging or exciting work. This was followed closely by a lack of career development (60 per cent). Both were ahead of the opportunity to improve salary, which came in third place (58 per cent) and work-life balance (54 per cent). 

Challenging, exciting work and career development can be easily provided in SMEs and they do not need to stretch your budget or require staff to be absent from the workplace. 

To make them key components of your retention – and attraction – strategy, our advice is to start by talking openly and honestly to individual staff about their career goals and development needs. This shows you genuinely care and are enthusiastic about their success, while allowing you to plan together how their goals and development needs can help the business work towards its objectives.

Then, look at the projects you have coming up. Can employees be given the opportunity to work on one of these projects to expand their skills? For example, could a team member get involved in a bid, systems upgrade or presentation to develop their skills or broaden their experience? Could they lead a business improvement, research the potential benefit of a new technology or onboard new staff? Would mentoring, sitting with a high performer or attending client meetings help them grow?

Of course, developing staff is also a major strategy to overcome skill gaps. NAB’s survey also noted that nearly half of all SMEs surveyed said there was a clear skills shortage in their sector. Therefore, you could look at areas where skill shortages exist and offer staff challenging work and career development in these fields.

As you can see, there are various ways you can provide challenging and exciting work and career development that meets both your business needs and your employee’s advancement. I hope these strategies help you overcome skill shortages while simultaneously retaining and attracting top talent.

They certainly won’t break your budget and are a retention advantage that money can’t buy.  

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