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A big issue here in Australia is the lack of skilled staff. Both Western Australia and Queensland have been in the middle of a resources boom for the past 3 or so years and it doesn’t look like ending soon. A recent report also suggested that in the next 10 - 15 years Europe is going to be needing 20 million skilled workers for various opportunities.

All of a sudden, our employment competition is on the other side of the world!

This affects everyone. Every IT company, every blogger, every web focused individual. People’s skills are in demand and there are plenty of people with the resources to steal your better staff.

So in a recent HR Forum a few colleagues and I discussed options for attracting and keeping people within your business. It seems that the best way to keep people is to address the basics of human requirements. Maslow was right all along - as was Herzberg!

I learnt in grade 3 that people were social beings. That we needed each other and there was a need to interact. But the type of interaction is also important. It’s no longer Command and Control, “Do as I say” or “you’re lucky to be here.”

People today are realising more and more that they have options. And options provide us with choice and lifestyle. If I don’t like working for you I’ll go and work for someone else. And you can’t stop them.

So, what do you do?

firstly, it really does come back to basics. People want to be recognized for their part in the business, they want to know that what they do makes a real difference and they want to be heard. The Internet opens up so many options today that there are probably more ideas floating around that there was in the whole of last century.

So ask questions. Find out what your staff are thinking and what they are thinking about their jobs. Ask them how you can help them make their job better. Better still, give them the challenge of making their own job better. They’ll have plenty of ideas and they probably won’t cost you anything.

“Back in my day.” Mentally count the times you say or think this. Now pay yourself $10 for evry time you say it and see how it mounts up. That’s how much you’re probably annoying your team. Now ask them what they need to do today. Ask yourself as well but if you’re in a leadership role remember who’s actually going to be doing the work.

Create small project teams. Ask these teams 3 questions:

1. what are we doing that we could improve upon?
2. what are we doing that we should stop right away? (and I mean today!)
3. what are we doing that is good and we should continue to do?

If you ask these 3 questions and nothing else, you will get a huge amount of feedback that will enliven the team, produce results and build a sense of ownership within the group. And once you have ownership with value, they aren’t going to be going anywhere soon.

Oh, one last thing: don’t start these things and not see them through. If you do, your turnover will go through the roof and your profits will go through the floor.

Bill

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