Top 5 Tips for Motivating and Retaining Quality Team Members

A good team member can make you thousands. Losing them could cost you much more. So when you find quality team members how do you make sure they stay with you? Here are 6 top ideas to retain your key employees.

1. Pay them less but enable them to earn more. To prevent key personnel from defecting to higher paying organizations, you could consider introducing incentive schemes that have lucrative bonuses tied to revenue income. The more money team members bring in to your organization the more they earn. The high achievers (the ones you want to keep) can earn as much as they like and it won't break the bank because you are only paying them a percentage of the extra revenue they generate.

2. Coach your team to take responsibility for their own projects. By being independent and making their own decisions, your team will acquire greater job satisfaction and fulfillment. This frees you up to work on your business rather than in it.

3. Encourage your team to take risks, by providing them with the opportunity to learn. When your team participates in courses, seminars, and mentoring programs, you are encouraging team loyalty and an open communication network as well as establishing a breeding ground for team advancement.

4. Be flexible with staff commitments. Loyalty is often generated through a number of small incidents that seem trivial, but have a greater impact on the team member. For example: allowing the mother of a sick child the flexibility to work from home for a week, will have a minimal effect on turnover, but have a huge impact on team morale.

5. Offer Employee Shares. Employee share schemes promote staff performance as well as retention. Team Members are less likely to leave if they own part of the company.

Finally, the bonus tip. Have FUN. Encourage social interaction such as theme days, boardroom lunches, drinks afternoons, birthday celebrations, group trips etc. Draw on the really corny but still true "a team which laughs together, stays together."

Brian Johnson is a Certified Business Coach with Action International. Please visit my website www.calgarybusinesscoaching.com and link to “ Action Steps News Letters”. With more than 26 years in corporate and private business, Brian works with people who want results and strive for more in their lives. Lets work together to make your business the best that it can be. Together anything is possible!

Article reproduced with permission.