Shawnee Love   •   August 17, 2018

I have recently noticed that a lot of owners of small businesses feel they are held hostage by their employees.

You’d think an owner has all the power and thus holds all the cards, but when business is booming, key employees (the ones you don’t want to lose) become mission critical.  Based on the feedback from clients, many of those key employees know it.  Maybe it is a generational thing and maybe more employees understand that you get more by asking, but now more than ever before, they are making demands of their employers.

More time off, shorter days, shorter weeks, longer vacations, paid training, more perks, parties, higher pay, better benefits, etc.

Any one of these requests would be happily accommodated, but when they start to come in batches with the implied threat that failure to deliver will result in the employee looking for greener pastures, employers are reporting feeling like they have been kidnapped.

“When did I lose control” mused one employer? “Where did I go wrong.”

I don’t see it as doing something wrong. But there are definitely things an employer can do to avoid or reduce the feeling of being between a rock and a hard place when faced with an employee demand.

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Planning and taking steps in advance can help employers avoid becoming hostages.  You can plan and take action by:

• Anticipating work and workload and training (and sometimes contracting or hiring) people to handle the work before hit by it.
• Asking employees what their needs are for time away from work, what their plans are for the upcoming year, what they need from you as an employer, and even what would cause them to leave and then having strategies to mitigate for their answers.
• Recognizing and appreciating employees contributions such that they feel valued (and hopefully recognize they won’t find a better employer or team anywhere else).
• Cross training employees so work can be if a key person leaves.
• Operating a little less lean. I know lean is the fashion if not the necessity for most small businesses, but too lean can be a major handicap because it leads to burnout of key employees and means there is no one to step in when a key role becomes empty.

Of course planning and then executing on strategies to address the requests holds risk as well.  There are incurred hard ad soft costs associated with more people, training, recognizing, and simply being in tune with employees.  Your time to assess and mitigate risks is also a cost you can rarely afford.

However, when the economy is hot, failing to take the steps I have listed usually means you won’t be prepared when the demand comes in or when the employee resigns because the demand can’t be met.

As the adage states, you don’t want to start digging the well when you are thirsty. It is better to make planning for the worst a regular part of your management activities.