BY C. Lee Smith
Small businesses employ around half of the U.S. workforce. These entrepreneurs are known for their ingenuity and bringing new products to the market. But they face big challenges, especially with their ability to hire and retain good workers. With the right strategies, small business hiring outcomes can be greatly improved.
What is the Current Employee Mindset?
The shock waves hitting the economy since the new administration came into power in D.C. is now impacting employees at all businesses. A new survey of employed knowledge workers indicates rising stress levels. Some of the stress is linked to finances. Workers are worried about paying their bills. They also fear not being able to find a new job if they lose their primary source of revenue.
To plan for the worst-case scenario, around 18% of employees have a second income stream and “another 57% are considering” adding a side hustle. This plan should worry employers as team members may not be bringing their best energy levels to work.
What Actions Can Managers Take?
Employers should be doing all they can to improve their team members' mindset. A few issues have surfaced in recent surveys and point to actions that managers can take to improve small business hiring outcomes.
Improved Communication
One reason employees feel stressed relates to the lack of communication from leadership at work. Uncertainty about the future weighs on team members’ minds. Reports of layoffs and tariffs and economic challenges come at consumers through all media formats. And then there’s the very real fear of losing their job to AI. They worry about their future and want to hear positive news from their managers.
Only around ¼ of companies are communicating, and in many cases, it’s vague. 35% of businesses have said nothing about how business is going.
Improved communication should be a top concern for the managers in your organization, especially if small business hiring success is a key goal this year. If employees don’t receive an indication of the business outlook, the rumor mill will start up. And it will be filled with incorrect information, the kind that drives employee turnover and reduces the quality of applications for open positions.
Retention Surveys
Managers can get a sense of employee attitudes about their jobs and the company by giving them a retention survey, such as the one found in TeamTrait. After surveying employees, managers should try to improve the work experience. Each employee has their own idea about what constitutes a quality work experience.
Managers will find this information in the psychometric assessments that employees take. In reviewing the data with each employee, managers can identify ways to improve job satisfaction. Whether it's a desire for more responsibility or more training, addressing these needs will increase retention.
Remote Work
While many employees would like to work fully remote, a flexible arrangement is also highly desirable. When it comes to small business hiring, offering this option to potential employees will attract interest.
Many large employers are calling their workers back to the office, even after they gave permission for them to move from a specific geographic region during the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift in attitude is causing employees to doubt the sincerity and transparency of leadership.
Trust
Business owners take a big step with respect to trust when employees work remote. Large companies have claimed that performance and output improve when employees work at the office. And they claim that employees have more synergy when they work in person.
As part of a small business hiring initiative, recruiters may also need to explain how work productivity is monitored and measured. Managers often use applications to monitor whether an employee is actively on their computer. Around 37% measure how long it takes for an employee to respond to a question. A better system, according to analysts, is based on performance outcomes. When managers can measure how long it took an employee to complete a task and the quality of the output, that’s a system everyone can understand.
Stretch Assignments
Small businesses are always scrambling to develop new products or find a better way to win more market share. Because of their lean staff, employees have the chance for more hands-on experience. Owners should emphasize this aspect of company culture when doing small business hiring.
When offering additional work experiences to employees, managers should position it as upskilling. Today’s team members worry about falling behind in the rapidly changing tech-based economy. Having opportunities to work in positions, especially ones that better align with an employee’s core interest, can increase loyalty, especially in the small business world.
Summary
To improve small business hiring outcomes, managers must invest more time in communicating with employees. When they personalize the job experience and help employees upskill, managers will be rewarded with improved loyalty and productivity.
