The business landscape is cutthroat. As the employment marketplace becomes ever more crowded, workplace norms are changing. The days when someone would join a company and stay there for years is a thing of the past. In fact, according to the latest research from Indeed, almost two-thirds of workers in the UK look for a new job within the first three months of joining a company. This should serve as a wake-up call to employers.
For a growing business, staff retention can be particularly challenging. Employers invest a lot of time and money into training their staff; you don’t want to do this only for your employees to take their skills and experience to another company or, even worse, a competitor. To encourage staff loyalty and ensure your employees continue to enjoy working at your company, your team must be inspired. Developing a bulletproof business culture that fits your company’s persona and the industry that you operate in can be the key to achieving this.
So how can you build and sustain a winning business culture and ensure staff loyalty?
Take care of the fundamentals
All businesses have some essential ‘hygiene’ factors – processes that need to run smoothly. The most fundamental of these is pay. Your employees work hard to ensure your business is successful and in return deserve to be paid accurately and on time. Failing to ensure your payroll runs like Swiss clockwork can have a detrimental impact on staff morale.
When it comes to talent management, the payroll department can in fact be the lynchpin of job satisfaction. Recent research from Sage into payroll activity revealed that 35% of UK workers would look for a new job if their employer paid them incorrectly just once. What’s more, a further 51% would lose faith in their employer and half would even resent them.
Payroll isn’t the only fundamental area that you need to get right. Others include clear and constructive people management and comprehensive training for your staff. If you want to make sure you’re on the right track, sit down with your employees and listen to what they think about your core practices. Be open to feedback and act on what you hear.
Encourage innovation
Popular understanding of innovation conjures images of Silicon Valley startups and programmers. However, a culture of innovation means nurturing fresh ideas and providing an environment where employees can think outside of the box. Building a company culture where new ideas are encouraged and every member of the team feels that their opinions are listened to is critical. However, nurturing innovation takes time so you need to be prepared for gradual change if you want the culture to stick.
Celebrate success
Business successes should be recognised and rewarded so make sure you encourage your employees to frequently share their achievements with the rest of the team. Everyone wants to work for a firm that celebrates triumphs, both large and small, and people are more inclined to go the extra mile if they see this.
To boost innovation and ‘extra mile thinking’ even further, consider setting up an incentive scheme. This can inspire creating thinking on a day-to-day basis and you’ll also be able to guide this new thinking to the company’s benefit. Incentivise the areas you want to change or improve; a more tightly-knit or innovative business culture can be the end-goal, with any staff member rewarded for an idea that contributes to this. 
This article comes courtesy of Sage UK, the business software and services provider.
