These are exciting times for your small business: you’ve carefully planned both your big-picture goals as well as the nitty gritty day-to-day execution of scaling your company, and now it’s time to share your plans with your staff. But with growth comes uncertainty, and employee retention can be an issue if you haven’t taken steps to prevent turnover. 

Maryland’s highly experienced small business CPA practice, BradyRenner, is here to help you avoid the common pitfalls of scaling that interrupt employee retention. Our consultation services will support you in retaining your employees during this critical time. In this fifth article from our series on scaling, we’ll take a deep dive into preserving your business’ bottom line while adding the perks and benefits that will keep employees invested in contributing to your growth.

Uncertainty During Scaling

When a small business is scaling, uncertainty can lead to issues with employee retention. In order to retain your current staff, you’ll need to be proactive and stop any uncertainty in its tracks before progressing.

• Less-defined roles among current staff may lead to retention issues, and the problem could easily compound when you hire and add new employees to your workforce. To prevent this from occurring, you should be reviewing and affirming the roles of your existing employees.

• An unclear mission can cause unease among current employees as well as hinder your efforts to attract the highest caliber of new hires. You want employees who are in it for the long haul and who share your goals. While there are certainly those who will work just for a paycheck, the people you want to hire are the ones who will stick around and grow your company because they’re invested in your  mission. Make sure that you lay out your mission in a clear manner and affirm how essential your employees are to its success.

• Feelings of insecurity may arise when employees are unsure of new expectations. A sense of belonging and being valued in their current role as the company scales and moves forward is essential to employee retention.

• Fears of vision change may arise as you begin the scaling process, causing your employees to feel as though your company is moving in a different direction than what they expected when they came on board. Continue to check in with employees and reaffirm the vision of your company moving forward.

• New processes which you may want to introduce can also contribute to feelings of uncertainty. Including your employees in these discussions and decisions will help make any new direction a collaborative effort rather than a unilateral one.

In your enthusiasm to jump right into scaling your business, you might inadvertently isolate your employees, which can lead to a sense of uncertainty about their future with the company. The more proactive and prepared you are, however, the more your employees will feel valued and included – and the more likely they’ll be to stay.

Maintain Optimal Employee Conditions

At BradyRenner, we offer reliable financial guidance to maintain optimal employee conditions while scaling. Financially speaking, you need to budget smartly in order to keep employees happy while not overspending and negatively impacting your business’ bottom line. 

Some of the ways you can maintain these conditions include: 

• Frequent and specific feedback: While annual reviews are also important and provide you with the opportunity to offer valuable feedback, touching base more frequently with your employees to let them know what they are doing well, what you need for them to improve on, and how you can work together to meet your goals will help contribute to a collaborative work environment where your employees feel valued and recognized. Since many employees cite a lack of recognition as a reason for moving to another job, feedback is essential to retention.

• Fair compensation: You may be tempted to use your resources to financially reward just one or two select employees who are invaluable, but in doing so, you’re at risk of making the rest of your workers feel devalued and underappreciated. Instead, focus on learning fair compensation for each role in your organization and pay accordingly.

• Invest in your employees’ future: As you scale up, show your employees the value of sticking with your business by offering leadership training, mentoring programs, and other programs which help your employees grow alongside your company. Our CPAs can help guide you through the financial feasibility of these options so you can choose the ones that align with both your budget and your retention goals.

• Offer other perks and benefits: BradyRenner offers the expertise of our CPAs in assessing which other benefits you can offer employees without overextending your budget. 

Preserving optimal work conditions as you scale up your business will help you keep your valued employees while also attracting a higher caliber of new employees needed to help you grow.  

Guidance You Can Trust

BradyRenner’s team of trusted CPAs have years of experience walking small businesses through the scaling process. We know how to help you retain your valued employees and move forward to the next level, and we’re ready to craft a plan to maximize your scaling success.

Call the small business CPAs at BradyRenner today to talk about your vision for scaling your business. And stay tuned for our next installment in the series, which will explore how a CPA can help scaling businesses avoid cash flow errors.