The current labor market is a wild place! The average person will change careers five to seven times during their working life and approximately 30 percent of the total workforce will now change jobs every 12 months. This creates a frustrating revolving door of employees, makes it very difficult to stabilize a workforce and creates havoc with company culture. One area of employment that may lead to attracting and retention of valued employees is the employee benefits that are available to them, fostering a more “family” feeling in the workplace.
Consider these three, often overlooked, recommendations:
Technology Training
We all need to stay updated on the latest and greatest developments in the technological world, it’s only a matter of time before the new tech that we scrutinize becomes part of daily life. Those who resisted the use of smartphones eventually had to concede defeat because so many things now rely on them. Not only is it fun for people who are interested in technology to learn about new advancements, but it’s also useful for their careers because it gives them advance notice of what the future might hold — and it shows you are invested in them.
Employee Pet Support
Child support is a fantastic benefit, but one that flies under the radar is pet support — no, seriously! It might sound trivial relative to the other things we have to deal with, but our pets matter so much to us — and contribute so significantly to our well-being — that having an employer that does what it can to support its employees’ pets will earn a lot of goodwill!
Mental Health Days
When employees feel down, exhausted or their mind is stuck on some issue in their personal life, the traditional business stance is “get on with it” — just continue working as normal and deal with your problems on your own time. Thankfully, more businesses are coming to accept that this approach doesn’t help anyone. Mental health is slowly losing its stigma. If employees know that they can take a few days off to recover if things get bad enough can really comfort someone who’s struggling, and if they need even more time than that, they can simply ask for it.
Offering high wages certainly helps, but things are more complicated than that. Given the comforts of modern life, many applicants now want more than just money. They want to be treated more like “family” and sometimes need our support.
Tracy Daggett, PHR,
Manager of Professional Development Training Services at the Manufacturer & Business Association. Contact him at 814/833-3200 or tdaggett@mbausa.org.
