Last week we discussed ways to increase productivity, allowing you to get better results with less time invested.
In essence, this creates more time for you to invest as you wish. Some of the ideas included time management, delegation and focusing on what you do well.
One idea we did not mention may be the most powerful option of all. It could be the single best investment a business owner can make. Unfortunately, many business owners do not recognize it, even though it involves their most valuable resource: their employees.
If you take time to teach and train your people, they can do those tasks in the future. They will do it the way you want it done, potentially freeing up your time.
If at the same time you focus on hiring people who are also good teachers, they can train the people underneath them. Now imagine the human resource leverage effect this could have. If the people you train can train others, you could handle future expansion with very little effort.
Some business owners are reluctant to invest in expensive training. If they invest in training, they may not be able to pay the highest wages. Once trained, the employee may be targeted by the competition, who can afford to pay more because they did not spend the money on training. If the employee quits, the investment is gone, and the competitor has an advantage.
That is a very real risk, but it can be virtually eliminated. If certain foundations are in place, you will not experience excessive employee turnover, even if the competition pays higher wages.
We will discuss those employee retention components in the next Biz Tip article.
