Employer of Choice

If you have ever attended any of my seminars, you know that I focus on building a competent, stable, well-led workforce. When those ingredients are in place, you gain the competitive advantage over the other businesses in your marketplace. But the future of your business requires that you retain that competitive edge. Your success in doing that is dependent on your ability to be recognized as an Employer of Choice. The following is the official definition of the Employer of Choice:

Any employer of any size in the public, private, or not-for-profit sector
that attracts, optimizes and holds top talent for long tenure
…because the employees choose to be there.

As we looked ahead in this New Year, we have decided to emphasize the importance of making your workplace the best it can be. The value of being an Employer of Choice cannot be overemphasized. Not only does it bring valuable benefits to the employees, but it also brings benefits to the company because it is the foundation for building your competent, stable, well-led workforce.

As an Employer of Choice, you will have the best opportunity for attracting the top performers that we all want in our business. As an Employer of Choice you build an environment that encourages stability and continuity of your employees. As an Employer of Choice, you provide the leadership that is going to take your business to new heights of success. Being an Employer of Choice will give you the competitive advantage that you need to build exceptional customer loyalty and business growth. Make an effort this year to understand the principles of being an Employer of Choice and take action to make it happen. We will partner with you to accomplish your goal.

The Real Costs of Obesity

The percentage of the American population that is overweight or obese has increased dramatically in recent years. This has cost companies countless dollars in health insurance and other expenses. Employers are too often focusing on reducing the cost of the health coverage but are not tackling the problem head on. Take steps to help employees lose weight and make healthy lifestyle choices. Here are some suggestions that you should consider:

To those concerned about the cost of these programs, the US Department of Health and Human Services reports that health promotion and disease prevention programs adopted by employers yield large dividends. The rate of return (measuring the benefits as opposed to the costs) ranged from $1.49 to $4.91 for every dollar spent. Aside from the cost savings, healthier employees typically have better morale, more self-confidence and are more productive.

Recipe for Hiring the Cream of the Crop

With so many potential employees seeking work, finding the perfect candidate should be easy, right? Not necessarily. Since there are so many resumes, you will need to work harder to separate the wheat from the chaff. The recipe for hiring the cream of the crop is to be diligent and conservative in your hiring practices. It is no longer uncommon to ask a job seeker to return several times for interviewing and testing before hiring decisions are made.

Take your time to review resumes thoroughly, look at:

Contract all references and discover as much information as you can about the candidate.

This is also a good opportunity to take advantage of this different job market to look around your workplace and give some serious consideration to the issues that may affect your understanding of who and what you're looking for in an employee:

Bottom Line - With potential employees clamoring to work for you, take the time to be thorough in evaluating both candidates and yourself. Take advantage of the situation so you can get the cream of the crop to work for you - and ensure that your place is a cream-of-the-crop employer.

Excerpted from the Maine Employment Law Letter
HR Hero Line, November 2003.

If you need help in finding the Cream of the Crop,
check into our Customized Staffing Solutions

The "Experts in People Solutions" will find the top performers for you.

You Need to Check

The following information came from the website of Sterling Testing Systems, a company that specializes in doing background checks of potential new hires:

One area to check carefully: Employers should check the driving records of all applicants who will be using a company vehicle or their own vehicle for company business. This should be done before the applicant is hired and periodically throughout the period of employment. The employer could be held liable for negligent hiring if they knew or should have known about anything contained in the employee's driving record.

Other common checks during the background investigation include social security verification, arrest warrants and felony convictions, education and certification, professional licenses, military service verification and, where appropriate, positions that involve handling company monies, and credit checks.

Contact us if you want further information on conducting background checks.

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Recommended Reading:
Digital Directions:
A Digital Workflow Guide for Customer Files
By John A Giles III

This is the third book by our friend, John Giles, dealing with the oft-times difficult task of handling customer's digital files. This third book is designed to go beyond the basic concepts outlined in his first two books, The Digital Original and The Digital Dialog, and offers standards, procedures and systems for establishing and maintaining a workflow to accept customer created files. Its purpose is to offer solutions and how-to's that can be put into every day practice.

This new book is intended to overcome the difficulties encountered by printers in dealing with the electronic files prepared by customers using a myriad of software tools. By taking a positive mindset and establishing the ground rules in advance, the whole process can be made easier and more reliable. The end result should be better quality for the customer with less stress at the printing company. Using these tools will also help the printers to educate their customers on actions they can take to make the file handling process smoother.

You can order this book on our website

For more information, please visit John's site at www.JohnGiles.com

Note: Our Recommended Reading list is available online and now has links to Amazon.com to allow you easy access to purchasing them for your own use.

Employee Retention At Risk

The long slump in the economy definitely has had an impact on the national turnover rate. Employees hunkered down to survive the recession even though they were not satisfied with their present work situation. As the economy brightens and other businesses open up the hiring valve, many workers will make the jump to a new employer.

The message is that, while overall turnover rates were down considerably in the past few years, labor market analysts believe employees will be more than ready to switch jobs once they're convinced the economy is improving. The major issue in retention is that workers will no longer be satisfied with their present level of benefits. Employees expect progress and so they will be looking for compensation increases, but more importantly they will be looking for better benefits and for employers who recognize the needs to provide work/life balance, financial security and health and welfare awareness. Those employers who today are taking the actions to be an employer of choice will be the winners when the job market improves. The value that they provide their employees will help them overcome an urge to find greener pastures elsewhere.

Take a look at your retention strategies now. You need to focus on those strategies that will hold your top performers against those offers from "the other guys." You won't have any problem on retaining the marginal employees no matter what you do, but if you can't provide the marketplace expectations, you will not hold the top performers nor will you be able to attract high performing replacements. Average benefits will get you average players.

By the way, remember that high performers like working with other high performers who all share the load and contribute to the success of the company. So if your present strategies are helping you hold the marginal or poor performer, you not only need to upgrade your strategies, you also need to winnow out the less than satisfactory employee. The gains in productivity that arise from having only top performers on your team will far outweigh the cost of the Employer of Choice programs that you implement.

Business Consulting Services - Products and Services for Building a High Performance Team - Free Tip Sheets

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