1. After some probation period, fire only as a last resort or for really terrible behaviour. Have a plan to correct behavior in all other cases.
2. No layoffs unless the firm's very existence is threatened. It's a tough year? Too bad, that's part of the risk involved in being the owner.
3. Keep pay up to market/replacement rates. If someone is 20% more valuable with his new knowledge, pay him 20% more. 4. Have good benefits/vacation policies.
5. Make sure there's lots of interesting and challenging work to do. Allow people to switch roles/teams on a regular basis if they're interested.
6. Hire good people.
That's a company I'd be loyal to, and I think a lot of others would be too. Sure, you'd get people who would leave for their own thing, or a dream job, or because their husband/wife got a job 2000 miles away, but I don't think you'd see people jump ship nearly as often.
The other stupid thing is companies trot out how much it costs to hire a new person, but never want to invest in just retaining their employees.
You'll often find places like this away from the big hubs. They're doing "quite nicely, thank you" with no ambition to become #1, IPO or make the owners richer than Croesus. They also tend to have little to no problem recruiting good people in their 30s and 40s into their nice part of the world where there are good schools, affordable homes and comfortable living.
Nowhere is perfect, the grass is always greener etc. You couldn't pay me enough money to move to London from Scotland.
Could you please give some examples? Having only worked in mega cities, I am totally unaware of such opportunities.
This company really does treat their employees like family. My wife got a phone call a few months ago that her father was very ill and in hospital (he's now recovered). Her boss immediately bought her a plane ticket so she could go home to visit him.
Last year she had to take a month off for surgery, and the company was really nice about it. They paid part of her salary while she was off to make up for the unemployment benefit (even though they didn't have to), told her to take as long as she needed to recover, sent her flowers at the hospital, etc.
She started off on a fairly low salary, but she's got multiple large pay rises since she started there, and is now earning a decent salary. (Her boss talked to her about salary, and basically asked her what she thought she should be making).
They do expect hard work and commitment. Quite often she will work overtime if it's busy, and they are very quick to fire useless people. However in return for your commitment they do treat their employees very well.
Before I started working on my business full-time I earned about 5x what I make now (and that was over 15 years ago), but I'm much happier now.
:)