Ask Timpo: keeping your staff

by John Timpson - Thursday, 6th September 2007 -

You can’t force anyone to stay; you must persuade them by providing a rewarding job and a competitive salary. Long-term contracts nearly always work in the employee’s favour.

If they want to leave, you might be able to enforce a six-months restrictive covenant or pay a year’s garden leave, but, if you are the one who wants to say goodbye, you will probably have to pay their salary to the end of the contract.

Contracts of employment should not be your main concern, you should worry about why people are leaving you. Don’t delay. If you don’t solve this problem it could ruin your business. Often, when employees abandon ship en masse, the biggest problem is their boss.

A senior manager who has lost respect will, before long, lose all his good people. So forget about longterm contracts and concentrate on the way you and your people are running the business.

Identify the problems and take immediate steps to put them right. Make a list of the things that could make your business a better place to work and encourage your colleagues to stay loyal. Be warned, if you keep losing good people you will finish up with a fourth-rate company.