A strategy from 18 years ago used extra pay and incentives to build a lasting culture that cuts turnover and saves money. Marc Haine explains how bonuses and purpose-driven work motivate grassroots and minimum-wage employees to perform better, making the investment cheaper than constant hiring.
18 years ago, they came up with an ingenious idea that continued to keep us efficient. And they got extra money for doing so. That up-leveled the organization because it's not just about me as the leader or the owner. It's about all these people. And that created a culture. And that created longevity. And that lowered turnover. And I'll tell you, the amount of money it costs when you have high turnover versus just giving people incentives and bonuses to keep them and upleveling them. Huge difference there.
And you also create the culture where people are playing at work, right? People are doing stuff that's fun. And so, they come to work thinking, I want to accomplish this. I want to make this happen. I want to do this. And it's so interesting because I find that especially the grassroots organizations where we have semi-skilled or unskilled labor, that even if they're minimum wage employees, some of them will give us their very, very best if we figure out what we can do to motivate them.
