One of an employer’s biggest challenges is finding great employees. And if you’re lucky enough to get them on board, then there’s the challenge of keeping them happy enough to stay. You want them to work long enough to pay for the cost of their hiring and training, instead of transferring those investments to one of your competitors.
It’s a challenge, regardless where you’re located. Sure, in a larger, urban area, you have more competition for quality workers. But you also have a larger labor pool. The problem is exactly opposite in rural areas: fewer competitors, but a smaller labor pool.
One potential upside to a smaller community is that most people know each other and may even have some personal history. Peer pressure to do a good job and personal accountability can be greater. There’s also some good news in the current economy, where many people have a heightened sense of value about their jobs and keep the performance level high.
Wherever you are, getting and keeping good employees will always be one of the more difficult aspects of being a PRO. That’s where benefits packages come in. These PROs tell us what they’re doing to make that package more attractive, and how their employees respond.
Charles and Lisa Langford of Church View Septic Service offer paid vacation, optional health insurance, paid holidays and a Christmas bonus to their staff in the Virginia Tidewater region, on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Church View offers septic system installation, pumping and repair in addition to portable restroom rental.
Lisa Langford says she thinks the most appreciated benefit is five days of paid vacation after a year and the paid holidays. There’s no official policy on offering more than five days after more than a year, but the Langfords try to be flexible and work around anyone who requests more time off.
“Most of our employees haven’t been with us more than five years, so we haven’t had to deal with that yet,” says Charles Langford. He says they also pay time-and-a-half for anything over 40 hours in a week, which happens often.
The Langfords agree they’d like to offer paid sick leave, but they’re not in a position to do that at this time. Right now, they’re just glad they can continue offering the benefits they do, despite the economy. “We haven’t cut back on any of that,” she says. “Haven’t had to … yet.”
“Probably the paid vacation and health insurance,” says Jeff Kaufman of Portable Sanitation Systems, when asked what part of his benefits package his employees like best. Located in western Illinois, Kaufman’s company offers a week of vacation during an employee’s first year. That jumps to two weeks after the first year and then levels off.
Health insurance premiums are split evenly between the company and the employee. Kaufman has long wanted to offer a retirement plan as an incentive to retain good workers, and “We’re going to be doing that this year,” he says, explaining that he’s working on instituting a 401(k) plan right now. “We’ve had an excellent last year. This year won’t probably be quite as good, but we expect to do well again.”
Sharing the profits this way not only helps Kaufman hold on to long-term employees, but also shows them how their hard work can pay off immediately with such new benefit programs.
Fay Portable Buildings Inc., Athens, Ky., provides mobile office trailers, roll-off containers and similar site services along with portable restroom rentals and septic services. Since all these services are labor-intensive, that means a sizable staff for Darrell Franklin and his partner, Jan Fay, to keep happy. He says employees most appreciate the company fully funding individual health insurance coverage offered as part of Fay’s benefits package.
Other elements include a retirement savings plan, profit sharing, paid vacations and holidays, furnished uniforms, paid dental and vision insurance, and paid disability insurance. Franklin says some workers have requested the health coverage be extended to other members of their families, and that’s the one element he would add to the package if he could. “If money was no object, we’d pay coverage for the whole family,” he says.
