What if raising pay wasn’t the only way to keep employees around?

Audrey Royem, director of Eagle Eye Consulting, says other options exist to retain Southwest Colorado’s workforce besides raising salaries across the board. But finding those solutions requires employers taking an intentional look at how sustainable the structure of their employees’ jobs are.

Royem discussed the concept during the 14th annual Southwest Colorado Small Business Conference held last month in Ignacio.

Getting ahead of the constraints that may influence an employee to leave is a common sense idea, but not one often considered by modern-day employers, Royem said. When it comes to retention, increasing pay is good but finding ways to ensure a job truly fits within an employee’s life constraints and needs can be even better.

“You might say, ‘We should just pay more – that’s going to be the answer, right?’” she said. “But here’s the thing: most jobs don’t fail only because wage is too low. They fail because they don’t fit within the margins of the system. The job doesn’t fit within life’s real constraints.”

Adjusting a job to fit an employee’s real-life needs in rural Southwest Colorado might look like allowing more remote hours to cut down on commuting time; setting clear schedules ahead of time – and sticking to them – to allow employees opportunities to reliably plan for child care and non-work activities; implementing adequate time off and personalizing logistics in ways that bring out employees’ strengths and accommodate their unique needs, Royem said.

Business owners and employers must be willing to have discussions with their employees about what’s not working, she said.

“(Employers) are operating under constraints, too,” she said. “Margins are tight, costs are rising. (They), too, need stability, retention, reliable performance. … (But) the issue is not lack of effort – it’s misalignment of the systems. Something’s not working, and yet, we keep trying the same thing.”

Robert Lee of the Zia Tortilla Co. said the concept has made him reconsider his employees’ needs.

“Everyone wants to make more. I mean, it’s not like I’m living high on the hog; I spread the wealth evenly, but we’re not (financially) there yet,” he said. “We’re all just taking what we can. I heard the quote, ‘Make sure (employees) have enough in their bowl rather than putting more in my bowl,’ and that’s what I want to try to do every day.”

Erin Youngblood, who works in a leadership role at senior home care company Comfort Keepers, said the company has experienced heavy turnover, likely in part because the job does not always align with employee needs.

“We have close to 60 employees, and they go across state lines from New Mexico to Colorado, and (with) a small percentage it’s a constant battle,” she said. “Many of our employees are amazing and committed, so the more we can learn to support them – which ultimately supports our client community – the better.”

Youngblood said some of the systems implemented to individualize employee needs – like allowing mental health days – have made a noticeable difference in employee work ethic and satisfaction. Exploring additional changes to better retain the workforce would be a worthwhile effort, Youngblood said.

“All of these conversations help support us in that process of always, always trying to be better,” she said.

Businesses feeling nervous about implementing new structures that better align with their employees’ life constraints can take the switch day-by-day, Royem told The Durango Herald.

“Fear is the thing that paralyzes us,” she said. “I would love to encourage people to make that first step. … Try one shift, in one role, one realignment that you can make, and see if that makes a difference. … Our mindset – especially in the older generation – is ‘more is more,’ but in the current reality, that’s not always the case.”

Adjusting business models to accommodate specific employee needs won’t always be a simple process, Royem said, but it can be worthwhile.

“Sometimes, one design shift requires another design shift – it’s innovation in the moment,” she said. “And just because you tried it once doesn’t mean that it failed. It means maybe you have to tweak it a little bit and keep going.”

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