{"id":131730,"date":"2026-06-03T12:49:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/its-not-all-about-pay-retaining-southwest-colorados-workforce-may-mean-adjusting-to-employee-need\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T12:49:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:49:33","slug":"its-not-all-about-pay-retaining-southwest-colorados-workforce-may-mean-adjusting-to-employee-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/its-not-all-about-pay-retaining-southwest-colorados-workforce-may-mean-adjusting-to-employee-need\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not all about pay: Retaining Southwest Colorado\u2019s workforce may mean adjusting to employee needs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Zia
Zia Taqueria employees assist customers on Friday at the restaurant on north Main Avenue. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

What if raising pay wasn\u2019t the only way to keep employees around?<\/p>\n

Audrey Royem, director of Eagle Eye Consulting, says other options exist to retain Southwest Colorado\u2019s 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\u2019 jobs are.<\/p>\n

Royem discussed the concept during the 14th annual Southwest Colorado Small Business Conference held last month in Ignacio.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s life constraints and needs can be even better.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might say, \u2018We should just pay more \u2013 that\u2019s going to be the answer, right?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBut here\u2019s the thing: most jobs don\u2019t fail only because wage is too low. They fail because they don\u2019t fit within the margins of the system. The job doesn\u2019t fit within life\u2019s real constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adjusting a job to fit an employee\u2019s 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 \u2013 and sticking to them \u2013 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\u2019 strengths and accommodate their unique needs, Royem said.<\/p>\n

Business owners and employers must be willing to have discussions with their employees about what\u2019s not working, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Employers) are operating under constraints, too,\u201d she said. \u201cMargins are tight, costs are rising. (They), too, need stability, retention, reliable performance. \u2026 (But) the issue is not lack of effort \u2013 it\u2019s misalignment of the systems. Something\u2019s not working, and yet, we keep trying the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Lee of the Zia Tortilla Co. said the concept has made him reconsider his employees\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants to make more. I mean, it\u2019s not like I\u2019m living high on the hog; I spread the wealth evenly, but we\u2019re not (financially) there yet,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re all just taking what we can. I heard the quote, \u2018Make sure (employees) have enough in their bowl rather than putting more in my bowl,\u2019 and that\u2019s what I want to try to do every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Zia
Zia Taqueria restaurant on Friday on north Main Avenue. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have close to 60 employees, and they go across state lines from New Mexico to Colorado, and (with) a small percentage it\u2019s a constant battle,\u201d she said. \u201cMany of our employees are amazing and committed, so the more we can learn to support them \u2013 which ultimately supports our client community \u2013 the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youngblood said some of the systems implemented to individualize employee needs \u2013 like allowing mental health days \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\"(Charles
(Charles Krupa\/Associated Press file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cAll of these conversations help support us in that process of always, always trying to be better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Businesses feeling nervous about implementing new structures that better align with their employees\u2019 life constraints can take the switch day-by-day, Royem told The Durango Herald. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFear is the thing that paralyzes us,\u201d she said. \u201cI would love to encourage people to make that first step. \u2026 Try one shift, in one role, one realignment that you can make, and see if that makes a difference. \u2026 Our mindset \u2013 especially in the older generation \u2013 is \u2018more is more,\u2019 but in the current reality, that\u2019s not always the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adjusting business models to accommodate specific employee needs won\u2019t always be a simple process, Royem said, but it can be worthwhile.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, one design shift requires another design shift \u2013 it\u2019s innovation in the moment,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd just because you tried it once doesn\u2019t mean that it failed. It means maybe you have to tweak it a little bit and keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

epond@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Something\u2019s not working, and yet we keep trying the same thing,\u2019 business consultant says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6410,6412],"tags":[431,1820,1605,1606,28,1823,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-131730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-2","category-business-2-local-news","tag-business-general","tag-dh-trueanthem","tag-employee","tag-employer","tag-headlines","tag-money-and-monetary-policy","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131730"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=131730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}