As a business owner, there will be a million and one things on your mind at the moment. What does 2023 have in store? Can we afford to keep hiring? Do we continue to innovate or stick with our current offering whilst it’s working?

It can be easy to forget, your staff are also suffering from a high level of uncertainty. Their fears or distractions may be different, but they’re equally as important for you to consider.

Keeping your staff confident and ensuring they’re on their A-game is going to bring about big benefits for your business, and means you don’t have to worry about the day-to-day operations amongst everything else.

Increasing the confidence and efficiency of your staff can be done in many ways – all simple to implement and guaranteed to deliver results.

Be open and honest about the situation

People respect honesty. If things are changing, or likely to change, your staff deserve to know. The alternative is suspicion, quiet conversations and plenty of worries. The easiest way to help your staff is to keep them up to date with the latest from your industry and ensure they understand where the business is at.

It may feel counter-intuitive to share updates on the business, but many companies understand that open communication about finances and future planning means employees feel more valued within the workplace. This increases employee retention rates as a result.

Offer your team increased flexibility

According to a recent Global Talent Trends report, U.S. remote job postings on LinkedIn represented 14% of all posts in September but received 52% of all U.S. applications.

What that tells us should be fairly obvious – flexibility is still a front-runner when job searchers are considering their priorities in a new role.

When financial struggles loom, people start tightening purse strings and stopping unnecessary spending. As an employer, you can take the decision to offer more flexible working patterns, reducing employee spending on commuting and food and drink outside of the home. It might not seem like a lot, but it all adds up.

Prioritise career development for existing staff

Now is the time to get your staff on that training course. You’d been putting it off – but there’s no excuse and no time like the present.

Showing your staff that you care about their progression, whether it’s internal or external, is a great way to improve morale and keep your staff skillset as versatile as possible. It also allows for you to reskill staff, should they need to temporarily move to another part of the company during downtime for their department.

Make efforts to better understand your employees

Emotional intelligence within your leadership is vital in times of trouble. Helping your team come to terms with a change in processes, workflow or future planning is integral to keeping your operations working at 100% capacity.

Assign a member of your management team to check on the mental health and well-being of your team during turbulent times. As an employer, it’s a responsible practice that your staff are likely to appreciate.

Listen to their ideas

It sounds silly – but many businesses forget that their teams actually do the work that earns their money. At the coalface, your team leaders and different departments are all likely to have ideas on how processes could be improved and spot where you might be leaving money on the table.

Not only does this mean your staff are rewarded and shown their value, but it allows you to create new opportunities for revenue and increases in efficiency and productivity – which is ALWAYS positive.

Get, and keep, the staff you need to achieve the next stage of growth

If you’re struggling to keep hold of staff, despite the difficult market, it might be time to call in the experts.

Cititec help businesses like yours understand their requirements in the hiring market and then help achieve them at reduced cost and in record time.

One phone call could be all it takes to change your hiring processes and staff retention rates for the better. Let’s talk.