The cannabis industry is not traditional, executive recruiter Mark Enlow of Enlow and Associates points out. But employees of cannabis companies still want to follow a conventional career path that leads to personal fulfillment, growth, and prosperity. The key to retaining excellent employees in the cannabis industry is planning the opportunities that give employees the simultaneous experience of security and growth.
Here are Mark Enlow’s four components of a successful cannabis company employee retention plan.
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Hire employees whose personal values are a good fit for your company’s values
Your employees will likely spend more of their lives at work than at home. Aligning personal values with the company’s values is the key to unleashing increased productivity for increased profitability.
Salary and benefits are essential to keeping good employees, but they aren’t enough. The factors that motivate employees to stay with the company go beyond financial rewards to achievement, advancement, responsibility, praise, and meaningful work. Employees who feel good about going to work every day are more likely to feel committed to their work, generate new ideas about how to do their jobs better, and stay with the company long-term.
Investment in employee development and training
Hiring employees who share company values is only the beginning of any effective employee retention program. Most people don’t dream of doing the same job every day for the rest of their working lives. Commitment to the company begins to fade if you don’t supply employees with growth opportunities.
That’s why you need to lay out each employee’s career path in front of them. If you don’t, they will have trouble imagining where they will be with the company in three, five, or ten years. Make sure each employee’s goals align with the company’s goals and evaluate progress at least a few times each year.
Offer excellent benefits
A few years ago, most cannabis companies could not offer good employee benefits. But as cannabis companies grow with premium talent, they are gaining the ability to offer premium benefits to retain them.
Remember that it usually costs more to acquire and train a new employee than to offer a new benefit. SHRM (the Society for Human Resource Management) estimates that the average cost of recruiting an entry-level employee in the cannabis business is over $4,000. But executive recruiters Mark Enlow and Associates point out that the cost of onboarding a new executive can easily exceed a quarter of a million dollars.
Don’t guess what your employees want, Mark Enlow says
Executive recruiter Mark Enlow advises cannabis companies not to make the mistake of assuming what their employees want. Use surveys to ask employees what they want, Mark Enlow says.
Human beings love being cared about. If you are taking the time to offer the perks your employees want, you are creating a culture of employee retention.