7 Ways to make your employees stay without salary increase.

Often I have asked myself before why people leave their work for another and how we (as a company) can help curb this exodus without unnecessarily giving pay increases right away.
While some people I asked about the reason for leaving their old jobs says it's their low salaries many, I believe, would have rather stayed longer if only the following will be provided for them even without salary increase.

1. Additional healthcare coverage.

Though they already have their existing medicare plan, it still is insufficient and would require members to contribute a certain percentage of the total healthcare cost. Getting an add-on healthcare plan to supplement medicare provides flexibility and convenience to your employees. Providing healthcare plans shows that the company is serious about the health and well-being of their employees and their respective families as well. Many will cling-on to a company because of excellent healthcare plans.


2. Establish a compelling reason for them to stay longer.

Good employees always looks to staying to a company until they retire. One of the many things they always consider aside from healthcare privileges are: nature of business, longevity of business, its profitability and of course their boss' character. As an employer, one must give a very compelling reason for them to stay and really stick with it. This could be job security or other employee benefits. This must be clearly conveyed early and the company must not lose focus on achieving this for their employees.


3. Allocate enough 'leg room' for fun at work.

Many companies disregard this single yet most important aspect in work - fun. For many, employees must always focus and be serious at work to achieve its productivity goals. While it might be true to manufacturing companies, it is quite the opposite to the service and technology industry where I work. In my experience, providing 'leg room' for fun even promotes creativity and increased employee camaraderie. Don't be afraid to experiment and find your niche that works.


4. Give milestone perks.

Everyone wants to be recognized by the efforts and hard work they put in to their company. It is just but appropriate to give small rewards of their efforts as one form of recognition. They may not necessarily be in cash but in forms that the employee will appreciate. This may be movie tickets or a good book to name a few. This way, they will surely feel important and that they will strive to their best and stay loyal whenever possible.


5. Provide a Savings and Loan Program.

There will surely be times where your employees need to borrow some money from the company for emergency or other immediate purposes. Protect those employees from loan sharks and provide a program where they can benefit in the long run. It is particularly helpful if a company can setup or guide the employee to enroll in a cooperative or any other form of savings and loan program. This will help employees to save and earn at the same time while at work within the company.


6. Create outdoor activities for employees (and their families).

Fun should not only involve employees but all their family members as well. Provide fellowship activities among family members within the company like an outing at the park, a children's day, a family city tour and other things that everyone can get involved. This provide a very good avenue for closer camaraderie among employees and their family members.


7. Be a good leader to your employees.

Of course what a good working environment does not only involve a comfortable work place or having wonderful co-employees but also having a leader that knows how to tap the potentials of his employees and leading them to success. There are lots of qualities what a good leader should be but in my opinion, I will just include what I feel are the most important ones: 1) cool tempered, 2)understanding 3) and a model.

How Technology Can Help Your Church

Many churches rely heavily on developing their membership bases so that they provide a solid foundation of support for general operating expenses and funds to help deliver on their missions. But developing and nurturing memberships can be a labor-intensive and time-consuming undertaking — from building relationships and demonstrating stewardship to overseeing staff operations — it all comes back to effective management. That’s where technology can help.

 

Technology has the potential to improve every aspect of your church operations. With limited resources – time and money alike – you should use technology strategically and where it will have the most impact. Although the challenges may be numerous, there are a few key areas in which technology can really make a difference:

1. Single, holistic view of members

How many different ways can members interact with your church? It’s very likely that various interactions fall into more than one category. It is vital for staff and volunteers at your church to be able to see a holistic view of your members. The proper technology will allow you to carefully manage all the day-to-day details and interactions with your members. An integrated financial, membership, and website management solution will allow you to easily view many types of information in one place, rather than in disparate applications.

2. Relationship management

Long-term support is achieved from engaging your members and cultivating and managing relationships. An effective member management system is more than just a technology — it is an enterprise-wide approach to managing information and enriching relationships. Technology can help you with everything from tracking valuable biographical information to ensuring that each member receives personalized treatment.

3. Accountability and stewardship

There’s no hotter topic in the church community than accountability. As churches are increasingly scrutinized, your ability to ensure that designated funds are managed correctly is critically important. Being able to easily share information between your financial and member management systems and then present it to members and stakeholders will help you demonstrate the impact of all funds that you receive. Your technology solution should allow you to share timely, accurate information, and provide a high level of stewardship.

4. Engaging members online

Building and fostering relationships with members can be difficult when your church has a small staff and a large congregation. It is nearly impossible to create a meaningful, personalized experience for each person. By creating an online community for your congregation, you can keep your members connected. Your website is an extension of your organization, so it should convey the same image and level of attention that you give members in person. A good technology solution can tightly integrate your website with data from your member management system; you can greet each member by name, target messages for upcoming events, and share news about groups or programs that a member is involved in right on your home page. Members can also update their profiles so information is always up-to-date.

5. Analysis reporting

What makes your church successful? Which areas can be improved? Capturing and accessing the information you need to demonstrate the effectiveness of your church is critical. You will enter a lot of important information into your database, and getting it back out should be a breeze. The right reports can help you take a flood of data and turn it into insight and action. Beyond the right reports, technology can also ensure that “real time” reports are effectively published online.

6. Direct mail

Add up all the invitations, newsletters, receipts, and thank-you letters that your church is sending out every year. Chances are, the sum will amount to a whole lot of mail, time, and postage. Managing your mailings doesn’t have to be as challenging, costly, and time-consuming if your technology solution allows you to automate the process. And with applications such as National Change of Address (NCOA) updates, address validation, and duplicate removal, you can be on your way to using your time and money as efficiently as possible. An integrated solution also allows you to enter member information in one place, which minimizes the likelihood of errors and saves time.

7. Saving time

As a nonprofit, everyone at your church must be committed to working in the most effective manner possible. The efficient use of time, money, and staff allows you to better deliver on your mission. Take a look at the technology solution you are using. Can you automate repetitive tasks? Can you access frequent operations from one place? Are you able to integrate with other frequently used applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets, email, and calendars? Do you have fast access to the reports and information you need on a daily basis to make strategic decisions?

 

Conclusion

The previous sections of this paper describe ways that technology can help your organization boost your membership program. But none of them really makes a difference if it takes an eternity to make them happen. Technology should improve your daily processes and drive efficiency within your organization. Everyone at your organization must be committed to working in the most effective manner possible. The efficient use of time, money, and staff allows you to better deliver on your mission.

Technology is an investment that can help ensure your nonprofit is operating efficiently. Clearly, success requires more than technology, but if your technology doesn’t allow for process automation and easy management of data, you can expect more work in the long run. In the end, the most important thing technology can do for you is to help your staff, processes, and the people you serve all work together seamlessly, providing the best experience for everyone involved.

 

Reference:

BlackBaud(r) http://www.blackbaud.com

10 sure-fire signs that your best IT staff may be leaving.

No IT manager is spared from facing the harsh realities of immediate IT employee resignations, me included. Overtime, I have learned to identify those potential soon to be 'immediate resignees' that will be leaving my team and how I prepare myself before it happens.

1.Consistently reports late for work.
This is the first early sign of lost interest towards work. Employees tends to find it ever more difficult to wake-up early in the morning as their usual interest wanes each passing day.

2.Not meeting project deadlines.
Work tasks slowly and consistently piles up. Not hitting the required turnaround time for task or project deadlines.

3.Leaves work earlier than usual
An unmotivated worker despises to do extended work and therefore leaves earlier than what he usually does. Of course, this alone cannot be used as an for loss interest since reasons for leaving early from work is diverse and may vary from one employee to another.

4.Lost interest and enthusiasm
The employee seem become serious at work and become less and less creative.

5.Receiving more external calls than usual
The likelihood of this employee looking for another work is high and inevitable. There will be times when he suddenly receives more calls on his cellphones and keeps on excusing himself to answer them frantically. Yes, these are calls made from HRs of companies the employee is applying a job for. This is a sure fire indicator that he's bidding farewell very soon.

6.Slowly distancing from colleagues
They don't see themselves staying longer and, as much as possible they don't want to nurture anymore attachment because it will make it even harder for them to separate from your company. A good example maybe, if an employee usually joins the team for lunch, you will slowly notice that he ain't joining them anymore and gives varied excuses why he can't.

7.Not making any more long term commitments
It's difficult to make this guy to say yes on some long term commitments. Like assigned projects or tasks that may take longer than his planned exit. This can easily be spotted during team huddles and strategic planning.

8.Seldom laughs at the boss' jokes
I have the habit of cracking jokes even at the most unlikely hour. I do this to break the seriousness and liven up the work environment. Even if my jokes were somewhat corny and at times, downright offensive, they never fail to laugh at them. If you see one of your guys not laughing at your jokes anymore – definitely he's a big candidate.

9.Personal belongings are slowly removed from the employee's desk or locker.
IT guys love to bring toys and some very unusuak stuffs. They fill in their work desks with things like: Rubik's cubes, actions figures, plastic toys, and technical books. When you see them slowly dwindling in number, they will surely be out in 2 to 3 days.

10.Not attending company engagements
Who would miss out a company-sponsored Christmas party or worse, a summer beach party?! If you had one under your department, surely there must be very very good reason for this or it may simple mean good-bye.

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My Advice:
If your were able catch this guy early on before he completes everything in the list above, find time to seriously talk to him and understand what needs to be done to save his job. Always remember that nobody wins when you lose your best guy, so give your best shot to spark his interest ones again.

The 20 Percent Factor

I found a very interesting article posted by ABC News about Google's 20 Percent Factor (Read Story) and how corporate America is changing its views on productivity. The 20 percent factor basically allows Googlers (Google employees) to spend their one day per week to do anything they want to do. They can work on their little 'pet' projects on the side either as a team or individually.

The objective of this process is to extract the creative juices of their bright and young engineers to come up with new ideas that may become a mainstream project of their company. True enough, several of these '20 percent projects' were now part of their company's revenue earning services.

My 20 Percent Version

This has inspired me to somewhat replicate this practice and achieve the same objective.I called it as 'Saturday Projects'. Upon announcing this nifty idea from Google, I immediately saw the eyes of my team lit up like light bulbs and were itching to get started. Yes, just like the original idea, they can do any projects they want on Saturdays. There we some basic rules and guidelines that I set just to make sure they are not breaking any company policies yet still, this is something they can truly call their own time.

Last Saturday, my two best programmers were working on their little projects and were happily conversing each other on ideas. Saturday is a no-pressure work day for us and I don't intend to make it one. As a leader of my own technology group, I have to be patient and creative to bring out the best from my team. This practice is one of the many implementations.

Since this is still an experiment, I will keep a notebook and share my best practices of my company's 20 percent factor. What's your 20 percent factor?