Hourly employees and full-time exempt workers typically form very different relationships with their employers, and they pursue their jobs with different kinds of motivations in mind. Of course, we all want to excel at what we do, and none of us enjoy being called out for performance-related reasons. But asking an hourly employee to go the extra mile will usually work better if you have something to offer in return—something in addition to time and a half.
So what steps can you take to engage your hourly workers and convince them to care about the company mission? How can you encourage them to invest not just their time, but also their hearts and minds? And most important, once you’ve gone through an expensive hiring and training process, how can you get your hourly workers to stay onboard? Here are a few simple moves that can help.
1. Work hard on your company culture. It’s been said that people don’t work for a company—people work for a boss. No matter how much we enjoy what we do or believe in our reasons for doing it, the quality of our workplace relationships will determine 90 percent of our on-the-job happiness or misery. So make sure you’re doing everything you can to build a positive workplace culture and a reputation that helps you attract the highest level of talent.
2. Share company goals with your employees, including your hourly employees. Let your teams know where you’d like to take this division, this department, or this company as a whole, and as far as possible, involve them in the decision making process. At the very least, keep them in the loop. Your company should feel like a team, and a team victory should feel like a personal accomplishment for each person on your payroll.
3. Offer opportunities for growth. Even if your employees are paid by the hour right now, let them know how to reach the next rung of the ladder, and provide access to this rung, including training resources. Every contingent or shift employee who wants to become a manager should have the chance, the encouragement, and the resources to pursue that goal within your organization. If you don’t provide these things, ambitious employees will search for them elsewhere.
Keep your talented workers on board, no matter where they stand in the company organizational structure. For more on how to motivate your employees, keep them productive, and help them grow, contact the IT staffing experts at Techneeds. If you are looking for temp agencies in Massachusetts, contact Techneeds today.