Big Grower September 2019 - 8

MANAGEMENT
EMPLOYEE RETENTION:
IS IN
Do you offer your employees the right ingredients
to make them happy?
BY MICHAEL MAGGIOTTO, JR.
I
love to cook. Years ago, I even owned my own
pizzeria in Louisville. After serving thousands
of satisfied and loyal customers, there are
many lessons I received from my love of cooking.
Whether at the restaurant or home, ask anyone
and they will say I made the best from burgers
and chicken to pizza, pasta and sauce.
So, what does cooking have to do with growers
and the horticulture industry? Well, a lot actually.
Grab a slice of pizza and let's jump in.
ONE SINGLE ANSWER?
A recent poll of CEOs by The Conference
Board reflects that obtaining and retaining
talent are their top internal concerns. Much
has been said and written about strategies
for obtaining talent, but without appropriate
internal efforts to retain current talent, there is
a limit in this historically low unemployment
and candidate-driven market as to how much
help recruitment can be.
Everyone seems to be looking for one single
answer, that secret ingredient that can solve
their most pressing internal concern. The fact
is, there isn't one.
This is where cooking comes in. For example,
if you make a sauce with tomatoes only, it's
just, well, blah. Unless you really love tomatoes.
What makes the sauce is the combination of
ingredients. Not just the crushed tomatoes,
but the tomato paste for texture, the sugar to
cut the acid, the pepper and oregano for bite
and earthiness, the salt to open the taste buds,
and - if you lean more Sicilian than northern
Italian in your taste - the basil for the right
touch of sweetness. You see, there is not one
single ingredient that determines the greatness
of the sauce, it is the combination.
Employee retention is the same thing.
Unfortunately, most business leaders look for a
single element to retain talent and it is almost
always the one component that is sure to
bankrupt them in the end - compensation.
The rise of extremely generous retention
bonuses and counteroffers that were
8 SEPTEMBER 2019
unthinkable less than a
few years ago point to
a " tomato-only sauce. "
As much as we may be
motivated by money, for
years studies on employee
engagement and retention
around the globe identify
many other elements other than
compensation as critical
to retention.
THE RIGHT COMBINATION
According to the Society for Human Resource
Management (SHRM) in their Toolkit article,
" Managing for Employee Retention, " there are
six targeted areas where effective practices can
be especially powerful at helping organizations
achieve retention goals:
1. Recruitment
2. Socialization
3. Training and Development
4. Compensation and Rewards
5. Supervision
6. Employee Engagement
It is the combination of all of these, not
just recruitment or compensation alone, that
serves to retain employees. Much has also been
written about recruitment and the struggle to
find talent in this candidate-driven market.
Focusing only on compensation will most
likely drive us all out of business by driving
up the price of talent, so it is important to
review one area we can impact that may
not necessarily have to cost much at all, yet
improve competitiveness in the market - Total
Rewards other than compensation.
The first place most business minds go to is
health benefits (medical, dental and vision), but
there are so many more benefits and rewards
that go into the mix. Start by looking at what
your current plans do and do not offer. Listen to
your employees and what they are asking for.
Many businesses offer wonderful services
that their employees just don't want or are
supervision
The Secret
the Sauce
not using. Use internal benefit surveys to get
feedback from your employees. Make sure
your talent acquisition team is identifying
the benefits that candidates are seeking and
are not finding at their current employers, or
even what they lament about leaving at their
current employer.
Tap into external benefit surveys to identify
what the market, industry and geography offer
and compare it to your company. There may
be some interesting ways to reduce costs while
improving these core benefits.
Just one caution - don't rely on your
benefit broker or even your insurance provider
alone for such survey information. Yes, they
are a great resource of information, but they
are hardly impartial. There is a vested interest
in getting your company to spend more money
with them, not reduce your spend. That is
why it is important to get third party, unbiased
and independent information. Only then will
you be able to make the best decisions for
your business.
Outside of the three core healthcare
benefits, there are many wellness program
components and perks that you can offer
that are relatively inexpensive. These could
include: health club memberships, onsite
health screenings and coaching, and health
plan incentives, which can reduce overall
healthcare costs for the company.
socialization
recruitment
compensation
and rewards
employee
engagement
training and
development
Big Grower September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Grower September 2019
