Tips SMEs can use to Attract and Retain Talent

Richard Brandson being an entrepreneur who has built enterprises from scratch often says that Clients don’t come first; Employees come first. If you take care of your employees they will take care of the clients. The statement puts into perspective what most companies don’t seem to get about creating competitive advantage in 21^st century markets.

Talent is competitive advantages that is even more critical to SMEs who are still starting out and often don’t have much to write home about other than a great idea and a coffee mug.

The challenge is SMEs have a hard time attracting the kind of talent they need to scale their businesses because for starters they don’t have funds to pay the required salaries of for instance an experienced sales person having a family and earns over 2,000USD. As I always tell my wife; life doesn’t get any easier, it actually gets harder and harder so we have to find a way of managing with whatever challenge that comes our way.

A few strategies SMEs can employ to achieve maximum returns from top talent while managing cash flow risk are as follows;

SMEs managers or founders can explore the option of performance pay. Matching the base salary of an experienced business manager or computer engineer may be hard but one can negotiate a mutually beneficial bonus structure, commission pay or any other bespoke performance incentive. Managers must ensure that the metrics given to potential hires are easily measurable and within their direct control. This creates an atmosphere of transparency critical to delivery of Key performance indicators.

The point of getting paid at a basic level is to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and transport to and from work, phone airtime among others. SMEs depending of the tax jurisdiction can expense such allowable expenses before tax cushioning their tax burden on one hand while meeting the basic needs of employees.

To manage high staff turnover; SMEs can offer annual or semiannual bonuses that ensures thy retain staff as much as possible are automatically lost if the said staff leaves before the agreed upon time.

Another option SME can pitch to potential hires is facilitating both career and personal growth through for example allowing staff to engage in professional activities that is good for their career such as facilitation or speaking in conferences, Mentorship programs.

Although difficult in Africa; SME can also offer stock or profit share option to employees to motivate them to work hard ensuring the company performs well.

Most importantly for Generation X, Y or millennials and those with family obligations is providing flexi hours, remote days, half day Fridays among others.

Finally SME can reward potential hire with Big Titles showing shows career progression from their previous employer as long as it doesn’t interfere with the current organizational structure. All in all compensation plan goes hand in hand with a supportive corporate culture.