• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

Please don’t leave me! How to keep your best employees

June 22, 2020Kristen Ireland

good-employee

You didn’t see it coming. One of your top employees has just submitted her notice. You didn’t know she was looking. You thought she was happy.  Where did this come from? What are you going to do?? 

Have you had this happen? You may have felt hurt and disappointed. You wished she would have said something sooner. Your bank account will feel the pain too. According to a 2017 CareerBuilder survey, the average cost of losing a good employee is $29,600. Now that’s an average, so this will vary by role — but these are the employees who know your customers by name, the employees who know drink orders without having to be told, the employees that your customer ask for by name.  

Ouch. So let’s talk about what you can do proactively to prevent this situation.  

Intentionally connect with them  

We hear a lot of business owners say they have good relationships with their employees. They say things like “I have an open door policy” or “my employees know that they come to me if they have an issue”. 

Here’s the thing: the employees you want to connect with and you want to stay are your high performers — chances are they will resolve their own issues. The employees who have the issues and will want your help are your mediocre employees. As a result, your time is being spent with the mediocre employees, and not the employees you want to keep.  

Be intentional about connecting with your high performing employees.  Make it a priority. Schedule time with them — and don’t cancel it.

Keep recruiting them

We hear business owners say things like we listed above — I didn’t know she was looking, I thought she was happy, I didn’t know something was bothering her, or I didn’t know she wanted something more. So, find out these things before they turn in their notice.  

During your scheduled times when you intentionally connect with your high performing employees, start asking them deeper questions. Ask questions about what they like, what they don’t like, what they want to do in the future, how they want to be recognized. Some of our favorites include:

  • “What do you like about your job?”
  • “If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?”
  • “What skills do you have that we haven’t utilized”
  • “Tell me about a time you received recognition that you felt really acknowledged the work you did.”  

Don’t bombard them all at once with these questions, that will feel like you are going through a checklist.  Rather, sprinkle a few of these questions into each of your conversations.  Don’t assume anything and be sure you listen to the answers.  You will be amazed at what you will learn!

Kristen Ireland is co-owner of People Spark Consulting, a human resources strategy consulting firm that works with small businesses to achieve their business goals through their culture and people strategies.

human resources hiring
Wow, I got tricked: How to hire a good brewery employee, not just a good interviewer
communication with employees
What’s the best thing you can do after letting brewery staff go? Stay connected
questions
7 steps for breweries to engage employees during times of uncertainty
human-resources-advice
COVID-19 and craft beer: HR advice for brewery owners at a chaotic time like this

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Portland Cider Co. donates $12,500 to Hunger-Free Schools
  • Penguin City Beer adds a tenant (first black, female-owned ciderhouse in Ohio)
  • Craft Beer Consumer Habits in February 2021: Are on-site attitudes changing?
  • Watch: Magliner’s Powered Lifting Hand Truck makes moving kegs quick and effortless

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • craft beer consumer tastesCraft Beer Consumer Habits in February 2021: Are on-site attitudes changing?
    February 24, 2021
  • No and low alcohol beer grew 30+ percent last year, now enjoy some big haps in the NA beer sector
    February 23, 2021
  • How to Seduce a Distributor: The importance of branding, common misconceptions and automatic disqualifiers
    February 22, 2021
  • I would totally sit in a hot tub of hops and drink chill pints at this new beer spa in Denver
    February 18, 2021
  • truly hard seltzer‘Truly’ crushing it: Boston Beer nets over $1.7 billion in 2020 revenue
    February 18, 2021
  • Wholesaler Updates: Stone Distribution expands into former AB Inbev warehouse (news on Urban South, Wild Leap, Hairless Dog and lots more)
    February 17, 2021

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2021 · CBB Media LLC

Continue ...

sponsored by