Are you a business owner struggling to find employees right now?
Employment rates are low, people have many options now and if you want them on your team you need to provide reasons they should be there. If you think people should be grateful to you for providing them with a low-paid and thankless job, you need to re-access your mindset.
Here is one way to create an offer that is attractive to the people you want to hire, which consists of the following steps
- Make the role meaningful.
- Pay what the person is worth.
- Have a recognition program.
- Have an incentive program.
Making these 4 key aspects of the job role offer compelling will both increase the number of applications you receive AND the quality of applications.
Make the role meaningful:
Many people take pride in their role and are looking to make an impact so if you want great employees, you need to offer a meaningful role in your business. Here is an example of how you could change a role within your business to make it more attractive to potential candidates:
You are running a furniture store and you need a sales assistant. The role is considered an entry-level role within the business and has a very basic outline.
Primary duties consist of:
- Customer service.
- Selling furniture.
- Setting up displays.
- Adhoc tasks as required.
There isn’t a lot there to get a candidate excited or engaged in. Considering the current generations coming into the workforce want to make an impact, you aren’t attracting candidates.
Instead of calling the role a sales assistant, let’s change it to Décor Experience Extraordinaire. Way more exciting right?!?! Now the outline.
New primary duties consist of:
- Exceeding our clients’ expectations by providing the best service in the furniture industry.
- Provide our clients with extraordinary solutions to their home décor needs, closing sales consistently and meeting monthly sales targets.
- Showcase the greatest experience of home décor in the furniture industry, through the creation of “Ultimate Home” displays.
- Support the rest of the team as required to provide the best possible outcomes for our clients.
Suddenly you have a much more attractive job role and are on your way to getting higher quality applications (and actually getting some)!
Pay what the person is worth:
Now that you have insight on how to reformat a job role to make it more appealing, let’s look at the money. Increasing the amount you pay can be daunting but change your mindset to view it as an investment and you can reap the rewards.
Following on with the furniture store example:
Sales Assistant
- Their remuneration is $23/hr or $47840/yr, plus superannuation and a staff discount of 10%.
- Costs you approximately $60,000(onboarding, training, superannuation, etc.)
- Assuming the store is making a 20% net profit, the sales assistant needs to generate $300,000 in sales to cover their cost.
It’s just your average retail award job, nothing to excite anyone. No wonder there aren’t any applications. Now let’s look at a salary package for the new role we have created:
Décor Experience Extraordinaire
- You increase the remuneration to $30/hr or $55,000/yr, plus superannuation and you change the staff discount to cost plus 10%.
- Costs you approximately $80,000 a year.
- They now need to generate $400,000 in sales in the new role, but you offset that but introducing monthly sales targets they are required to achieve.
- Then to ensure they achieve over breakeven point consistently you offer an uncapped bonus. 5% on every $1 they make in sales after they achieve their sales target for the month.
The additional salary (over 20% above the award), the improved discount (which you still make money on), and uncapped bonus opportunity complement role change while making it affordable for you to get quality employees.
Before you ask, you aren’t paying a bonus for someone to do their job. You are investing $1 in your employee to get back $20 or buying money at a massive discount. It also gives them the opportunity to increase their remuneration based on their performance.
Have a recognition program:
The next step in having a compelling job role to offer to potential candidates is to have a recognition program in place. There are several points to consider when building this:
- What will you recognise?
- What will you call the recognition?
- The frequency of the recognition.
- How to measure it?
- How will you reward it?
Following on from the furniture store example used previously, this is how it could be done:
- We recognise the top salesperson and the top sale.
- The top salesperson recognition will be called “The Extraordinaire Plus” and the top sale recognition will be called “The World Record for the most extraordinary sale in the history of Furniture.”
- The top salesperson is a monthly award. Top sale is a yearly award but stands until beaten.
- The top salesperson is measured by the highest combined dollar transaction for the given month. Top sale is measured by the largest dollar transaction in a full year.
- Tops salesperson monthly gets a $100 gift card. The top sale gets a two-day getaway fully paid for.
Sales don’t have to be what you recognise, although, in this environment, it makes sense.
Have an incentive program:
Now you have the new job role down, have changed the pay structure, and put a recognition program in place. So here is the cream or the cherry on top – the incentives.
Here is how incentives work, your employees make more money by making you more money. Simple right?
The incentive or benefit for them is that they get the opportunity to earn more. The outcome is that your revenue increases and you make more on the bottom line.
I’m going to come back to the furniture store example to keep the theme. Ok here is how I would incentivise the Décor Experience Extraordinaire:
- For every one year $149 extended warranty on furniture they sell, they get $20 to be paid once a month, in their first payment of the following month. This is uncapped, so if they sell 5, they get $100. The reason I picked the extended warranty as it is 100% GP and the rate of use is extremely minimum. It also adds to the extraordinary experience as you are providing over and above peace of mind.
- For every “Ultimate Home” pack they sell, which is the combination of all the times in the display they set up valued at $9997, they get $300. Not only does this encourage going the extra mile in creating the “Ultimate Home” displays, but it also sets up a big-ticket item that boosts your sales and has your team striving to sell the packs. It works out that you pay $1 per $33.34 of revenue, which is amazing. Paid as per the warranty incentive.
How could you do it?
Find a positive behaviour to reinforce (providing peace of mind/creating an extraordinary experience).
Find the right product/service/measure that provides that, ensuring it generates great outcomes.
Work out the right reward (usually dollars but could be a day off etc).
Define when you will pay it.
The incentive program is in place and now you have an awesome offer to recruit the right people.
With these four steps and the example provided you should be able to create a meaningful and compelling job role offer. This will give you more high-quality candidates to choose from.
If you need support with this, message us on Facebook or Instagram for a chat or send an enquiry via our website.
Michael Clift
Founder
Venture Cultivation Coaching
