How do you choose the right staff?
Hiring permanent staff usually means a significant investment of the employer’s time and money. You need to be as confident as possible that you are recruiting the right candidate so that you don’t have to go through the whole process again six months later. The first thing employers should consider when developing compensation packages is fairness.
Where to advertise
To find good sales staff without having to spend a great deal of money, advertise the position on the Internet. One cannot find a more captive audience. Register on an employment website and submit the job opening so that it can appear online. Bizcommunity.com and Career Junction are good examples of online employment agencies.
Using recruitment agencies
Going through a recruitment agency is expensive. However, you can advertise online and through traditional methods such as running an advertisement in the newspapers. The wording of the advertisement must be carefully thought out, as you want to attract the right kind of person.
Another option is referrals from current staff or from your suppliers.
How to compensate staff
Compensation is typically the first thing a potential employee will consider when looking for employment. It is important to give a lot of consideration to your business’s compensation structure. After all, for employees, compensation is the equivalent not to how they are paid but, ultimately, to how they are valued.
There is no right or wrong formula as so much depends on the business circumstance.
Rob Jones, the founder of Lewyll Communications, has extensive recruitment agency experience within the PR, Marketing and Events Management industry. In this business arena it is easy to go on your own because it’s purely a service industry and thus requires very little in the way of set up costs,” says Jones. “A good way to remunerate staff is to pay a percentage of the profit. It could also be a good idea to bring staff in on a partnership basis (non-equity) with a basic plus percentage of profit,” recommends Jones. A spokesperson at Beyond Red Event Management Specialists said that their staff is paid a commission plus 1% of overall turnover.
What are employees looking for?
But many employees are not just looking for money. There are many non-monetary forms of compensation that can be introduced to ensure staff loyalty. These include a benefit an employee receives from the employer in the form of social rewards. These could be job security, flexible hours, an opportunity for growth within the company, praise and recognition or educational advancement paid for by the employer.
Direct compensation
Direct compensation is an employee’s base wage. It can be an annual salary, hourly wage or any performance based pay that an employee receives, such as profit-sharing bonuses.
Indirect compensation
In the current economic climate, indirect compensation can work very well. Businesses that cannot compete with high cash packages can offer individualised alternatives that meet the needs of the people you want to employ. Estelle Shear worked for a travel company based in Johannesburg for 15 years.
“The basic salary wasn’t great, but I stayed for a long time because I earned commission. But is was the indirect compensation in terms of free travel benefits which were included in my work contract that kept me from going out on my own”.
Indirect compensation alternatives include:
- Flexible working hours
- Pension funds
- Medical aid
- Paid leave (sick/holiday/personal days)
- Free tickets to events
- Magazine subscriptions
- Use of a company car
- Cellular phone subsidy
- Child care assistance
- Petrol allowance/card