The bMighty Blog -- HR

For the smaller business, holding on to good employees is crucial to its success. What smaller business can afford the costs of employee turnover? From recruitment to training, it gets very costly, not to mention disruptive. But if a smaller business takes care of its employees, their employees will almost certainly take care of them.

A recent article in the New York Times illustrates how true this is. The article, titled Using the Human Touch to Solve Workplace Problems, tells a simple story of a small company, Vurv Technology which develops human resources software. In 2000, the company relocated its headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida. Two "crucial" employees -- software developers -- were having trouble with the new commute.

The employees' supervisor suggested to the company's CEO, Derek Mercer, that the company buy these two employees good used cars, at a cost of $5,000 each. They did and both employees are still with the company. Significantly, the company has grown from 24 employees then to over 300 employees now.

In the article Mercer points out that it would have cost the company "more than the nearly $10,000 it paid for the automobiles to find and train replacements, not to mention the ground it would have lost with customers."

He is quoted: "I felt that they were good employees and responsive to the customers."

The quotes from the employees are even more illuminating. One of them, Tim Gunter, said: "It wasn’t the nicest car. It wasn't the prettiest car. It wasn't fresh off the lot with new-car smell. But boy, did my overwhelming feeling of dread go from that to enlightenment. This is what this company is about. This is what Derek is about." He adds: "I was just hooked. The 80-hour weeks we worked after that never meant anything. It was give and take. I was giving and the company was definitely giving back."

The other employee, Renee Richmond, expresses a similar sentiment: "A company that takes care of their employees, it definitely is returned to them tenfold because their employees are going to take care of them and do a good job."

Note that the company helped these employees while still keeping an eye on its bottom line. Obviously smaller businesses have limited resources -- retaining talent is not just about money -- but by demonstrating that they really care about their employees they can engender a loyalty that will ultimately pay off.

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