Read this guide for ideas to retain employees through incentives like flexible schedules, wellness programs, career development, and team-building. 

The following is a guest post from my bloggy friend Ashley Nielsen. Interested in having a guest post on my website? Click here for my guest post submission form.

9 Proven Ways to Create a More Engaged and Loyal Workforce

The modern employer has to provide innovative incentives to retain quality employees in competitive industries. Employees have access to new job opportunities through a simple internet search, and successful employers are going to focus on incentives to build a strong workforce. Employees have options when it comes to competitive industries, and it’s important to pay attention to the needs of employees as a way to retain those who work hard for your company. As an employer, there are many ways you can boost engagement among your employees and improve the work-life balance that each employee experiences.

Provide Flexibility Around Work Schedules

One of the best ways to show employees that you are invested in their ability to balance work and life obligations is to offer flexibility around work schedules. Take the time to look over schedules, and identify ways you can offer employees control over their work hours. Be creative, as employees appreciate the ability to work from home when necessary, or to work off hours to better balance what they have going on in their life. Flexibility is essential to retaining a dedicated workforce in today’s work environment. New hires are going to be looking for flexibility when it comes to working from home, changing work schedules temporarily, or with the ability to go for an unexpected appointment without retaliation from their employer.

Increase Opportunities for Career Development

Opportunities to engage in educational opportunities help to retain qualified talent. Most employees want to grow in their careers, and a good employer will assist employees in getting the education they need for advancement. Tuition reimbursement, workshop opportunities, and other educational events can all improve morale and increase employee retention. When employees know that you care about their career advancement, they are going to be more dedicated to your agency overall. Each employee should know what steps are needed to advance in their career within your company, and be provided with opportunities to achieve these advancements.

Offer Wellness Choices to Employees

A healthy workforce performs more efficiently. Employers who are supportive of the mental and physical health of their employees are going to improve employee engagement overall. Look for ways to bring wellness classes to the office, such as yoga or meditation, as a way to show employees different activities to improve health. Offer to pay for gym memberships, health screenings, or other proactive healthcare measures to show employees that you are invested in their physical and mental health. If you have the space, opening up a small gym somewhere in your building can make a big difference to the physical health of your employees.

Invest in Team-Building Events

Team-building is more than having a pizza party with your employees once a month. When you truly want to get your employees invested in your company, you have to build a team that is cohesive and works well together. Team-building activities can be any activity that your employees enjoy doing as a group. This could mean you create a bowling team for employees to have fun on a weekday night, or movie night party, or you come up with a group challenge where the winner of the challenge gets a prize at the end of the month. When you build a strong team, you will have better communication and cohesiveness between your employees.

Recognize Employees Through Incentive Programs

Incentive programs are an excellent way to reward employees who are working hard at their jobs. You can use a point system that provides employees with financial compensation once they reach set parameters. Points could be redeemed for time off, money, or other incentives you come up with. When you have good employees who work hard for your company, find ways to reward these employees with quality incentives that are personalized. You want employees to value the incentive program, and this means the program must offer incentives employees believe are worth the hard work. Awards such as Employee of the Month should come with more than a pat on the back and should include a gift card or other financial reward for achieving the award.

Create Space for Peer to Peer Recognition

Whether it is done anonymously, or in person, peer-to-peer recognition can help to improve morale among your employees. This type of recognition can be done using electronic means, such as creating the opportunity to blast a message to other employees about the good work someone has done. Peers should feel comfortable recognizing each other and taking the time to let others know that they appreciate the work being done. Peer-to-peer recognition can come in the form of points to be spent in the incentive program, or in other ways that the employees would appreciate.

Company Retreats for Better Cohesiveness

Company retreats can occur during a work day, or over a long weekend if you have the time and money to make this happen. A retreat takes everyone away from the daily distractions of the work environment and allows the team to learn more about each other. It is often beneficial to do a company retreat that isn’t in the office building, as employees don’t often feel enough separation from their job duties if the retreat is down the hall from their office. A retreat provides you with the opportunity to get to know your employees better and builds cohesiveness among your employees.

Look for Community Initiatives

As an employer, you can look for opportunities to make a difference in the community with the help of your employees. You can ask for suggestions from your employees, and choose the idea that matches best with your goals. Community initiatives can include cleaning up a park, beautifying a school playground, or planting a community garden. Your team of employees can join an effort that is already in place, or you can create your event for the community if you have enough support. Employees should receive time off for the time spent on the community initiative to always support their work-life balance. Employees will become more engaged when you are focused on their health, and career advancement, and recognize solid work efforts. When employees feel seen and heard by employers, they are more likely to stay at the company. As you build your workforce, always look for ways to communicate with employees and come up with strategies to address any concerns that come up. You want a dedicated workforce, and this is done by showing your employees you are invested in their long-term career goals.

About the Author

Ashley Nielsen

Ashley Nielsen earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration Marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She is a freelance writer who loves to share knowledge about general business, marketing, lifestyle, wellness, and financial tips. During her free time, she enjoys being outside, staying active, reading a book, or diving deep into her favorite music. 

Need new customers for your eCommerce business? Read this post for some ideas to drive eCommerce growth in the new year. 

The following is a guest post from my bloggy friend Megan Isola. Interested in having a guest post on my website? Click here for my guest post submission form.

Growing Your Online Business: Smart Customer Acquisition Strategies

Each year, businesses the world over seek to increase their customer base by identifying and engaging new customers. As an eCommerce  business owner, you do not have a physical location for customers to find and visit. Because of this limitation, you need to find alternative methods to reach potential customers and convince them to look to your business for whatever service or product you offer. To drive eCommerce  growth in a new year, you will find that new strategies are needed if you want to grow your business by adding new customers.

Gaining and using insight into how your customers interact with your business

With an established eCommerce  business, you have a ready source of information about your current customers. These are the people or other businesses that have decided that the product or service your business is offering is something they need or want. Therefore, you can make the most of the data that comes from your existing customers to develop a plan to reach new customers. As an eCommerce  business owner, you are likely aware of the myriad tools available to obtain information about or from individuals visiting your website. This information will help you paint a picture of your customers, beyond the fact that they purchase your product or service.

With a detailed understanding of your existing customers, you can work to develop ideas for how to market your company to potential new customers. These plans can be as simple as changing where and when you advertise, or as complex as using data insights to drive business growth through detailed and targeted advertising. Because you are using data from your current customers to find new customers, you can test your action plan with the customers you already have and make adjustments before deploying the plan to find new customers. As you carry out your plan, you will begin to gain insights into what works for reaching and engaging with new customers.

Finding and connecting with new customers using social media

Many people use social media in their personal lives to maintain connections with friends and family. But as an eCommerce  business looking to engage with new customers, you can use social media to find those people and connect with them. However, to successfully employ social media as a tool to find and connect with new customers, you need to do more than post to your business’ page. To truly use social media to its fullest extent, it will be necessary to analyze and interpret the data about your existing customers and use the analysis to find new customers.

Using a social media analysis tool will make this process simpler and more effective. With such a tool, you can provide information about your eCommerce  business and your existing customers, which the tool will analyze to find certain similarities and patterns. Then, with that information in hand, the service can be used to develop an action plan for finding new customers through social media. Because there are so many ways in which people may connect with a business through social media, it is important for you to have an appropriate plan to reach your target audience.

Engaging with potential customers to make them customers

Converting potential customers into customers is something every business must do. Many companies will measure a metric of how many potential customers become customers, and they are always seeking to increase that number. As an eCommerce  business owner, it is important that you not only grab the attention of individuals on the internet but quickly convince those individuals to take a closer look at what you have to offer.

Many people use the internet as a resource for just about anything they can think of, which often means they are jumping from site to site, task to task. Therefore, if a potential customer sees something you have to offer, but what they see does not hold their attention, it is unlikely they will become a customer. This is why it is more important for eCommerce  businesses to present enough information in a search result or ad to get the attention of someone, but not enough information that they decide they will not visit your site.

Once on your site, you almost need to engage these first-time visitors in a way that quickly holds their attention, giving them a reason to look deeper into whatever it was that drew them to your site and to further explore what it is you have to offer them. This level of engagement can be a difficult balance between too much and too little, and you will likely need to iterate on how you approach providing information to potential new customers.

Making the most of public relations to engage with your customers

You operate your business in a world that is more connected than ever, but there are some things about how a business can best reach and engage with customers. One of those things is public relations. While the need for most businesses to have a specific public relations office that works with the media to present the company in a favorable light to the world has passed, the need for any company to ensure the public sees how it operates remains the same. More and more, social change drives how businesses do business, and keeping up with what your potential customers are looking for in a company can be a challenge.

Using an external public relations platform can solve these challenges without the need for a public relations staff. Such platforms serve as a go-between between your company and the media, with the media then presenting your image to the public. Many potential customers will look at how a company presents itself and how it does business, and these things can be the difference between whether someone is willing to engage with your company or not.

As an eCommerce  business, your public image is more important than for companies with physical locations. Because your existing and potential customers are only interacting with you through the Internet, they must rely on media sources to gain insight into your operations. While traditional media may not be the first place they look, a public relations platform can provide the world with other sources of information, such as public filings, advertising, and information on your website. Using an external public relations platform will enable your eCommerce  business to engage with your customers positively through the media, driving business growth through an increased customer base.

About the Author

Megan Isola

Megan Isola holds a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality and a minor in Business Marketing from Cal State University Chico. She enjoys going to concerts, trying new restaurants, and hanging out with friends. 

Want to pitch an irresistible collaboration? Learn the key elements of an effective proposal and how to offer enticing mutual benefits to seal the deal.

The following is a guest post from my bloggy friend Indiana Lee. Interested in having a guest post on my website? Click here for my guest post submission form.

Collaborating with peers, partners, and coworkers is a great way to enhance your operational efficiency and share the burden of your responsibilities. Effective collaboration brings out the best in people, too, as folks can share their unique skills and talents when working together. 

However, if you have ever engaged in a group project at work, then you will know how hard it can be to convince people to collaborate with you. This is understandable, as many people mistakenly believe that group projects will put a disproportionate burden on them. 

Rather than growing frustrated with peers who turn down collaborative opportunities, learn to pitch group work in a way folks cannot refuse. This respectful, enticing approach to collaboration will build a buzz around your project and help you bring in the insight and expertise of more people. 

Understanding Effective Collaboration

When you invite folks to collaborate with you, you should already have a good sense of what, exactly, they will do. This is crucial, as you cannot afford to waste people’s time when they join in your efforts. Similarly, people who join your team should not be expected to shoulder more than their fair share of the work. Before you send out proposals, be sure that you understand the basics of effective collaboration, including: 

• Culture: Do you have a clear sense of values driving your efforts? Do you welcome new ideas, and will you take the time to get to know your teammates? 
• Goals and Roles: What do you aim to achieve, and who will do what tasks? This ensures no one takes on too much and will help you get more from your people. 
• Leadership: What kind of leader are you? How do you plan to motivate and engage your co-collaborators? 
• Communication Lines: How can folks get in contact with one another? What tools and tech will you use to ensure everyone is on the same page? 

Answering these questions will put you in a great position to write an enticing collaboration proposal. A little preparation shows that you are in a good position to lead these efforts and can be trusted to spread the workload evenly amongst your peers. Defining your goals and roles early on will be crucial when writing your proposal, too, as these details will form the backbone of your pitch. 

Writing Proposals

Once you have established some goals and identified key responsibilities, you will need to write a project proposal. A formalized proposal shows your co-collaborators that you are well-organized and ready to lead a team of people. In general, an effective project proposal contains key elements, like: 

• Summary: Introduce the problem that you are trying to solve as clearly and concisely as possible. What will the impact of your project be on the wider problem? How will this introduction entice your stakeholders? 
• Background: Dive a little deeper into the problem, including data and key details where relevant.
• Solution: Propose a solution that includes a vision statement, core responsibilities, and a proposed schedule. This gives people an understanding of the scope of the project and the work they may be asked to complete. 
• Resources: What will you need to follow through on your vision? Are you waiting for funding? What costs do you expect to incur? 

Conclude your proposal with a persuasive summary. Re-emphasize the impact of your project and foreground the benefits that you can offer to folks who join your team. This will help stakeholders remember your pitch for days and weeks to come and will help you build an emotive appeal. 

If you are pitching to individual people, be sure to personalize your pitch. Learn more about the person you are asking to collaborate with and figure out what motivates them. Researching your potential co-collaborators will impress your stakeholders and will ensure that your pitch is relevant to their needs and aspirations. 

When writing your proposal, remember to keep your pitch as concise as possible. You do not have to share every detail of your project up-front. Instead, use time-saving tools to speed up the writing process, and focus on helping potential co-collaborators understand the need for teamwork. This will get folks to jump on board quickly and can help you create a culture of collaboration and cooperation. 

Mutual Benefits

Unless you are working on a charitable project that requires altruism from participants, you probably need to offer some mutual benefits to the peers you ask for help. Foregrounding the mutual benefits of your collaborative efforts will tip the scales in your favor and help build buy-in amongst folks who were previously on the fence. 

If you offer financial incentives, be sure to manage your financial system with transparency. Use tools like document management systems and regularly reconcile your accounts. This will help you manage a budget and remain financially compliant. This is crucial if you plan on offering dividends or financial benefits to the folks who have joined your team. 

Benefits do not have to be financial to be enticing. Sometimes, folks will join your project to gain experience and add something to their CV. If this is the case, be sure to endorse these team members as fully as possible. Write praise-heavy reviews on their LinkedIn profiles and give them qualifications or certifications based on their efforts.  

You can also offer noteworthy experiences to your co-collaborators. For example, if you are running a project that will garner public attention, consider concluding with a virtual summit and inviting your team members to speak. This will give folks a chance to practice their public speaking, help them network, and will innately boost the credibility of their CV. 

Conclusion 

Pitching collaborative projects can be tough if you do not know how to communicate persuasively. Get the ball rolling by writing a proposal that is clear, concise, and properly organized. This will show folks why their efforts are important and will entice your peers into joining in. Follow through on this pitch by offering lucrative incentives. This will draw more people into the fold and help you share the workload amongst your peers. 

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About Indiana Lee

Indiana is a freelance technical writer, and is available for hire. Click here to find her on LinkedIn.