How to retain good staff

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How to retain key staff

Key staff are essential for any business. When an accountant or financial person looks at your staffing structure or business set up – they just see numbers on a sheet and people as a fixed cost without taking account of the value they provide.

But for the effective manager, this is where the art of management comes in – some people are more use than others and a key management skill is to retain key staff.

What are key staff?
Key staff have what we have called “corporate know-how”.

They know how to get things done. If a large delivery comes incorrect or there is a power cut or a water shortage or a leaking roof – chances are key staff will know what to do and most likely – start doing it. These are the sort of staff you need.

Staff you don’t need are those who stand around waiting for someone else to take the lead.

Quite often though – key staff can be quite hard work and almost exhausting to work with. The trick is to wind them up and let them go…

Failure to keep up with them can mean they become disillusioned and look to move on..

How to spot when key staff are unhappy?
If you are getting requests for references for other jobs, this should reveal something crucial about your business..

Moreso, if you look at the job description and think

“they would be wasting there time doing that”

The thing to remember is – They don’t think so – otherwise they woudn’t have applied and that is pretty damming on your organisation or business.

But how to reward them?

A common discretionary way to reward staff is to award what the British public sector calls an increment. At around £20 per month, £5 per week (less tax of course!) , this is at best a token gesture, at worst an insult.

We would suggest that financial rewards are not the best option in these circumstances. These people aren’t (totally) in it for the money – yes it helps – but the want to do a good job as well.

If you are going to provide them with training – then give them a booking form or a web link so they can book it themselves.

Saying “yes – we will sort out that training course” and then doing nothing about it is a way of saying “go away and calm down”

Bending the rules and knowing which rules to apply is another management skill which can help here.

Suppose the person you want to reward wants to leave work 30 minutes early to watch a child in a school concert or important sports match.

For the non key staff (who stand around waiting for other people to do things), a half day leave would be required but for the key staff, being flexible and just asking them to just make the 30 minutes up some other time is the way to go.

However, you must get them to trust you and you them that your “special arrangements” are perks for them personally and not for “general consumption”

However, you do it, you must recognise that key staff are very valuable to you and your organisation. The key is to build trust and relationships so what is good for them is also good for your business.

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