wages

Enticing Potential Employees: 4 Strategies for Making Your Company an Attractive Workplace

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Attracting new and qualified employees can often be a challenging and complex process. There are many factors to consider when recruiting new employees, such as the background, qualifications, and educational history you are looking for. Many qualified applicants are searching for specific qualities in companies when job hunting. Therefore, not only will you need to be aware of the type of employees you are searching for, but you will also need to ensure that you have created a company culture that is conducive to their needs. The following information provides four helpful strategies you may want to consider in order to make your company an attractive workplace for job seekers.

Create a Desirable Company Culture

You should strive to create a desirable company culture by developing an environment that promotes innovation, inclusion, and diversity. This will allow employees to think freely and creatively to come up with new solutions to business problems. It will also show that the company is ethical in its hiring and promotion strategies. Everyone should feel like a valuable asset to the company, and employees should be encouraged to be respectful to each other despite their differences. All of these factors combined should help to create a company culture that attracts the top talent and discourages high employee turnover rates.

Offer Competitive Wages and Benefits

You will also need to make sure that you are offering competitive wages and benefits to your employees. The top talent wants to work for a company that values them and invests in their potential and professional success. Therefore, you should encourage their growth and always strive to reward hard work.

Make Ethical Decisions

Your company should strive to create a positive and ethical reputation for itself. This can be achieved through manufacturing products in an ethical manner that doesn’t damage the environment or communities. It can also be helpful to give back to your local communities through charitable endeavors and to listen to the feedback and concerns of your customers in order to provide them with the best products and services.

Become More Eco-friendly

Many companies are making a shift towards becoming more eco-friendly. This is something all businesses should consider because the health of our ecosystems is vital to our future. Ways you can reduce your carbon footprint and make more environmentally friendly decisions include reducing your energy and water usage, manufacturing products in a way that causes less harm to the environment, and disposing of waste in the proper manner through research and by hiring professionals, such as aerosol disposal services.

Overall, there are many ways you can make your company a more attractive option for talented and qualified applicants. You just need to strive to be ethical and compliant and to invest in the future of your employees. The aforementioned tips make excellent starting points and there are always ways to improve and grow in order to become a better company for your employees.

Guest author, Lizzie Weakley is a freelance writer from Columbus, Ohio. She went to college at The Ohio State University where she studied communications. In her free time, she enjoys the outdoors and long walks in the park with her 3-year-old husky Snowball.  @LizzieWeakley

Will Franchises Suffer from a Proposed Higher Minimum Wage?

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franchiseMany workers across the nation are protesting, and some states and the federal government appear to be listening.

During his January 2015 speech, President Obama mentioned wanting to see a small hike in the current federal minimum wage per hour (the wage varies in states).

In Seattle, the mayor announced a plan to incrementally increase the minimum wage in his city over a span of between three years and seven years to up to $15 per hour.

It seems inevitable that minimum wage employees will be able to look forward to higher wages in the near future.

What Do Industry Leaders Say About It?

On the flip side, however, some organization leaders, like Steve Caldeira of the International Franchise Association (IFA), are claiming that minimum wage increases like these would devastate the franchise business.

He claims that it would lead to higher prices up to 50% more, lost jobs, and less foot traffic. It’s hard to imagine that paying lower level employees more would do anything of the sort, leading to negative repercussions for businesses and franchise owners.

As the following article asks, does a higher minimum wage hurt franchising?

Is Seattle leading the charge?

First of all, Seattle’s decision to implement a scale of higher minimum wages isn’t federally-mandated, so their goal of reaching $15 per hour isn’t one that lower income cities would have to follow.

Seattle is one of the wealthier areas around the country, with higher incomes to match. It costs more to live there; the economy is thriving there, so it seems reasonable that employers should pay more for their labor. Meantime, less affluent areas like Alabama or Mississippi won’t be forced to match that $15 mark.

President Obama talked about a 10-cent hike, which will actually do little to impact payroll and payroll taxes for franchises, and will do even less to alleviate poverty among the minimum wage working class.

Ten Cents is a Drop in the Bucket

A 10-cent wage hike forced on franchise owners by the federal government wouldn’t likely be a burden at all for many of them.

In fact, franchise owners who are able to offer a little more than the minimum may oftentimes find it easier to attract employees who are eager to prove themselves worthy of being highly valued. This in turn could prove beneficial to sales in two ways.

Better Wages Mean a Better Working Environment and Higher Profits

First, happier employees always give better service. An employee who feels that they are earning a fair living wage will be one who serves happily. It’s also one who will go the extra mile to show that he is capable of more in the way of promotion.

Second, franchise owners who pay a little more will get a well-deserved good reputation from the public. In these days of transparency and social media, a business that treats their employees well will soon be called out.

Consumers who make it a point to shop deliberately will flock to their doors, offsetting any extra cost a franchise owner might incur for increasing their minimum wage.

Who Should Influence Your Decision?

Finally, as a business owner, you should be listening to your consumers and your employees, not wealthy CEOs, lobbyists or special interest groups.

Your daily bread depends on meeting the needs of your customers by meeting the needs of your workers. The rest you can tune out.

With that said, what do you as a business owner think a fair federal minimum wage is for employees?

About the Author: Kate Supino writes extensively about best business practices.