6 Strategies to Retain and Engage Employees

In a recent study from the Energy Project (2013-2014) only 7% of employees have their core needs met at work with slightly over 59% surveyed not having any core needs met.  There were four core needs measured in this survey: renewal (physical), value (emotional), focus (mental), and purpose (spiritual).  These statistics are staggering given the fact that employees spend approximately 80% of their work week interfacing with clients.  If employees are not growing and being nurtured, can it be expected that they will be able to delight clients by helping them thrive?  Attracting top talent continues to be a key component of any company’s strategy.  However, the ways in which top talent is recruited and retained is a hot topic that is largely debated in today’s literature.  Too many companies hire good people only to let them flounder once they come aboard.

Quality onboarding practices embraces ideas such as making new hires aware of company history, their specific services that are unique to the marketplace, and intensive job-specific training.  Driving high performance, creating a common language across the company, and strong cultural buy-in are essentials in today’s employment landscape.

In the last several years, employee dissatisfaction has become a major hot-button issue for many employers.  This is supported by a Kelly Services survey that reports that around 44% of respondents feel valued by their employer, yet they actively are looking for better job opportunities.  Employees who are content with their current position are actively seeking greater meaning and engagement from their positions; an attitude and activity that must be nurtured and encouraged. 

Here are 6 strategies to increase retention and engagement amongst employees:

1. People want to be valued, cared about, listened to, appreciated, respected, and involved. These values directly relate to basic human needs that, if nurtured, will contribute to an employee that exhibits ‘leadership from the heart’.
2.  ‘Face to Face’ appreciation for a job well done carries clout and strengthens workplace relationships.  People need to feel that their work is valuable and makes an impact. 
3. Create a healthy work environment by committing to positively blend the different generational needs and values of the workforce to leverage their diverse strengths of knowledge and skills towards productive activity.
4. Set reasonable expectations for work-life balance and affirm them with positive reinforcement and incentives.
5. Communicate company values and strategy often to maximize employee buy-in.
6. Encourage creative out-of-the box thinking.  Let employees know you’re receptive to new ideas.

Your employees directly affect client experience and the bottom line. The moral of the story is if a company does right by the employees, they will do right by the clients, and new business will follow as a consequence.  A simple statement that requires a complex approach.  

Time and Attendance – What’s the ROI?

As we continue to hear questions regarding time and attendance return on investment (ROI), we started to think to ourselves “What is the ROI of time and attendance – Does everyone really know?

With payroll typically taking up 50-60 percent of businesses’ operating expenses, companies want to ensure that payroll dollars aren’t being wasted and that the highest return possible is achieved from that investment. This is where automated time and attendance applications, also known as time and labor management applications, come into play… But how do companies quantify the ROI of their on-premise or SaaS-based software purchase?

That’s a great question – thanks to all of you who have brought that up!

There are three core areas in which time and attendance applications return much more than what is paid for them:

1. Control and reduce labor costs

In order to achieve this, the first step is getting insight into exactly where payroll dollars are being invested. Companies need to see which employees are in and out of work – they need visibility into who’s coming or leaving early and late, or who’s absent entirely.

There are several areas of workforce management that can be improved in order to manage labor costs accordingly – here are a few big ones:

• Absence – According to Mercer, the direct and indirect costs of absence alone can make up 34.2 percent of payroll expenses. From planned absences like vacation to unplanned absences like sick time, managing absence in an automated fashion allows companies to track accrued time off accurately and make staffing adjustments to cover for absent employees.
• Overtime – Unplanned overtime can be a huge, and often unforeseen, payroll cost. By keeping tabs on employees’ timesheets and getting alerts for employees who approach overtime, companies can easily reduce this cost by finding alternative coverage for the position.
• Accuracy – There are tons of companies out there that simply pay employees for the time they’re scheduled to work. However, what if they’re continuously coming in late and/or leaving early? How about if they continuously take long lunches? They’re still being paid for that time they are not working, which is a cost that’s easily controlled. By simply automating the collection of time worked, companies can ensure employees are getting paid accurately for the time they actually work – no more, no less.
• Demand – By having the ability to manage a workforce in real-time, companies gain the ability to make staffing adjustments based on the external factors of that business – either proactively or as they happen. For example, companies should be able to plan for historically slow or extremely busy shopping days in retail. And if the forecast calls for inclement weather, and shopping is typically reduced in these instances, schedules can be adjusted accordingly.

2. Improve productivity

Another area companies can track where payroll dollars are being invested is what employees actually work on, and how much work they do. By tracking the departments, jobs, and tasks of employees, companies can get a great understanding of what’s actually being invested in with their payroll dollars. Perhaps they’ll gain insight that sales people are spending more time on administrative functions then they are on actual sales, and be able to address it accordingly from there.

Alternatively, in a manufacturing business, management should be able to track the piece work of each employee (i.e. how many widgets they can produce), which will give them insight into the most effective and productive employees they have. On the flipside, they’ll also see who the least effective employees are and can invest in training for these employees and/or open up new job requisitions to find better talent.

Time and attendance solutions also provide a great avenue to make management and administrators more productive, allowing them to spend less time on manual processes like creating schedules, approving time off, monitoring employee time, etc.

3. Minimize risk of noncompliance

There are virtually endless pieces of legislation that companies must comply with from the FLSA to the FMLA to the ACA. And if there’s one thing that can be said about non-compliance, it’s that non-compliance costs big bucks! The Department of Labor (DOL) has people employed in the agency that are solely responsible for finding non-compliant companies. If accused of non-compliance for the FMLA, for instance, the cost for a company can range from $78,000 to $150,000, and that’s just to get to trial! And then let’s say that company loses the trial, additional fees can include:

• Employee reimbursement for any monetary loss incurred
• Equitable relief
• Attorney’s fees
• Expert witness fees
• Court costs
• Liquid damages

When you think about the cost for automated time and attendance, it seems pretty nominal when you start thinking about the potential ROI. At Mosaic, we also provide an automated system that helps our clients comply with ACA requirements and reporting. Check out our video highlighting all of the capabilities that our ACA Manager can do for your business here. 

Looking for more details on this topic? Hear it from the experts and give Mosaic a call at 303-645-4270 or visit our website at www.mosaices.com