Two of the best strategies for employers to retain staff are to give them recognition for their efforts and provide them with a company car, according to the findings of the PKF Employers'' Survey 2003 which examined the challenges for growing businesses of rewarding and retaining employees.
Growing businesses may not be able to provide their staff with the high salary and benefit packages offered by the larger companies but they can often provide a working environment in which individual efforts and contributions are more readily recognised. The most common reason for leaving is ''better career prospects''. Across the country, only 20% of employees move on for greater monetary rewards.
Martyn Potter, HR consultant at PKF, says, Many small and medium-sized companies underestimate their employees'' desire for personal recognition. Businesses who want to keep staff should put effective appraisal systems into action and consider employee recognition schemes and monthly bonuses for good performance.
Growing businesses can also compensate for perceived disadvantages about lower salary scales by offering an innovative and flexible range of benefits such as pensions and a range of assistance with transport costs. Only 18% of the companies interviewed failed to offer pensions provision beyond the basic stakeholder pension for staff and these tended to be ''micro'' companies with less than nine employees.
Half of the companies provided group personal pension plans, 21% operated final salary schemes while 20% ran money purchase schemes. Despite the recent downgrading of pension expectations, employers recognise that pension schemes have an increasing profile as part of an employee''s overall salary package.
Almost three quarters of the sample (72.3%) also agree that companies should take responsibility for helping employees to save through pensions, other saving schemes or share ownership plans. The two main reasons underpinning this sense of responsibility for staff are the Government''s dilution of pension provisions which has put the onus more firmly on employers to encourage staff to save for the future and the belief that the provision of pensions schemes helps to attract and retain staff.
Support with transport costs is the other area where employers can provide employees with benefits. Not surprisingly, the most important transport-related benefits are company cars (77.0%) and car parking spaces (73.8%) although these are seldom available to all members of staff.
Martyn Potter recommends that growing businesses negotiate with their staff if they cannot afford formal benefits packages: You may be able to offer more flexible hours or extra holidays in return for a sacrifice on pay, job sharing or time-off in lieu instead of overtime. Always place a value and definition on the package of benefits as this will give a sense of worth to the employee.
PKF has produced a thought-piece highlighting the key findings of its employer survey carried out in February 2003 and providing practical self-help steps for growing companies. Entitled ''Employers'' Survey 2003 -Rewarding and retaining employees'', copies of the six page thought-piece can be downloaded from the PKF web site at
Personal recognition and a car are the keys to keeping employees
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