How To Keep Great Employees

A challenge every business owner faces is keeping great employees on their team. Let’s face it, good people have options. Add to that recruiters actively pursuing qualified employees and businesses competing for talent, and it’s more important than ever that your team sees the benefits and a great future in staying with your company.

There’s so much to say about how an employer can accomplish this. I’d like to put forward one of the great ways of doing it.

Consider holding a one, two, or three-day team retreat.

The purpose of this retreat is threefold:

1. Download Your Vision

Make sure everyone on the team knows where the business is going. If you fail to provide clarity, people will fill in the blanks. And odds are excellent you won’t be pleased with how those blanks are being filled. You might as well fill those blanks with the truth and as clear a vision as possible.

2. Upload Information

This is far more important than the first objective. The retreat should provide owners, managers and team leaders with a better understanding of what the team wants. What turns them on? What turns them off?

It’s an opportunity to clear the air of any elephants in the room and get everyone talking. This, of course, requires creating a safe environment where people can share their fears, concerns and anything else that might prevent them from being excited about staying with the company for years to come.

3. Get the Team Excited

If done well, everyone should leave the retreat feeling good about where the company is going and their future with it. They should feel heard and confident that their suggestions will be taken seriously and put into action.

A Few Suggestions for a Successful Retreat

1. Consider hiring a facilitator.

This allows owners and team leaders to pay attention to what’s being said rather than having to run the meeting.

2. Remember the objective of the retreat.

In my opinion, the priorities should be:

• 80% uploading information from the team to owners and management.
• 20% downloading information from management to the team.

If the company does a good job of listening to employees’ concerns and follows through with action items to address them as best it can, you’ll go a long way toward achieving that third objective of getting and keeping people excited about working for your company.

3. Hold the retreat outside the office.

I think this is a great idea. I’ve found that retreats generally have a higher chance of success when people get away from their everyday work environment, distractions and routines. There’s something about being in a different setting that encourages people to think differently, speak more openly and have conversations they might not otherwise have at the office.

Creating an agenda for a retreat like this can be challenging. Connecting with someone who’s experienced in planning and facilitating retreats may be a good place to start. It’s always nice to have a menu of ideas to get the ball rolling.

If you’re considering holding a team retreat, whether it’s your first or you’re looking to improve on past retreats, please don’t hesitate to call me. I’d be happy to share my thoughts, free of charge, no strings attached.