Retaining Employees During the COVID crisis as an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs are known for being passionate about their product or service. They believe in their ideas and fully nurture and support them. In some cases, they are also shrewd businessmen, knowing the importance of a smart marketing campaign and the flow of supply and demand. One area of their companies that isn’t frequently discussed, however, is employee retention. With this unexpected stress test of COVID-19 affecting everybody, it’s time to rethink that, not just in the event of another crisis, but as a way to fairly treat employees in general. 

When the world is eventually on the other side of this pandemic and things are starting to return to normal, employers will need to be prepared to answer questions about how they handled this crisis. Naturally, not every company will have had the luxury of keeping its staff and setting work-from-home mandates, so they will need to explain their methodology and decision-making. Future prospective employees will ask them how they handled issues such as employee retention, salary cuts, and benefits, among other things. 

Smart CEOs in this day and age understand that their employees are being inundated nonstop with the scariest news imaginable, whether or not it’s fact-based. It’s important to be transparent with their team about any company news that relates to potential job cuts or furloughs, as well as good news like obtaining government assistance via loan programs. 

Telecommuting used to get a lot of pushback, mainly because of the lack of understanding by management about what it entails. While there might be initial costs involving equipment and training, the payoff is huge. Contrary to popular belief, employee productivity has not only increased, but employees are more engaged and communicative working from home during COVID-19, and many are becoming skilled in new methods of contact like video conferencing.

On the flip side, employers who quickly shuttered their doors and fired staff will be recognized as such. Thanks to job sites like Glassdoor and Indeed, previous employees have the option to share openly with the world about their experiences. If they worked for a company that instantly let people go without severance pay or prior warning, this will reflect negatively on the business when it’s time to dip into the talent pool.