Loyal employees are the backbone of your organization. A seasoned workforce encourages customer confidence and smoother operations. But building a loyal workforce in light industry can be a challenge when competition for great employees is stiff – it’s up to you as a hiring manager or HR director to promote strategies that make the grass on the other side look a little less green. Here’s where to start:

Loyalty Through Empowerment

For most employees, job satisfaction is imperative to loyalty. For you as a manager, both of these factors boil down to one element: empowerment. Empowering employees to make decisions without micromanagement is key to job satisfaction, and hence loyalty. Delegating as much decision making as possible to your employees demonstrates trust – trust in your employees, and trust from your employees. Demonstrating to your employees that you have faith in their abilities to do their jobs gives them a stake in your organization that’s hard for the competition to match.

Loyalty Through Accessibility

So many organizations tout open-door policies between employees and management, but when employees approach the door, they find it closed, either because of red tape or management inaccessibility. Get serious about an open-door policy if your goal is loyal employees. Knowing someone is listening to their concerns and frustrations can make the difference between a light industrial job in your organization and another at a competitor’s organization. All levels of management should operate on the principle that employees are free to express their concerns and opinions without worry about recrimination or retaliation. The trust it builds between employees and management is invaluable.

Loyalty Through Recognition

Like the open-door policy, employee recognition efforts are often touted, but rarely implemented in ways that employees appreciate. For a great example of an employee recognition program that works in the light industrial workforce, look at Zappos – when reporter Bryan Pearson went to Zappos to find out why employees love working for the shoe retailer, he discovered that it came down to the employee recognition culture that’s central to Zappos’ corporate philosophy. Your organization doesn’t need to provide the free lunches and snacks that Zappos serves to employees each day, free and low-cost programs also build loyalty through recognition – just congratulating employees on handling a busy period well, celebrating individual and group achievements, and generally showing an interest in your employees as people as well as employees will do the trick.

Building a loyal light industrial workforce is easy when you start with great employees. Staffing Partners’ employment experts can help you find the best employees for your temporary and temp-to-hire positions. Contact us today to get started on your loyal workforce.