How to Make Your Startup an Attractive Place to Work

So you have a killer business idea that you’re anxious to make succeed. You’ve created your business plan, figured out how to get started, and are ready to take the next step. The thing is, you’re going to need employees to make your business a success, whether that’s now or later on. That means you need to work on making your startup an attractive place to work.

Develop a Great Culture

A lot of employees today are no longer content to work at a job that sucks their soul away from the way previous generations were willing to do. If you want to attract employees, especially the good ones, to your startup, your workplace needs to have a great culture. Great company culture can go in a lot of different directions, so you’ll need to figure out what that means to your company.

Start by figuring out what atmosphere employees want to experience at work (hint: pretty much everyone wants a positive work environment). Come up with strategies you can use to incorporate that atmosphere with your company brand. That will help you develop a cohesive experience overall for the employees you hire to work for your startup.

Provide Competitive Benefits

Teenagers may be willing to work for just a paycheck and little to no other benefits, but that isn’t the case for most adult workers. Offering competitive benefits to your employees is going to be a must if you want to attract top talent. There are a lot of common benefits employers offer. As a startup, it may not make sense to offer all of them, but if you want to make your business desirable for employees, you should be competitive with as many as you can.

Find out what benefits other businesses around you offer and focus on those. Of course, offering benefits comes at no small cost to your business, so you may need to take advantage of additional financing to pay for them until you’re bringing enough in as a business to sustain them. The good news is that some benefits can reduce your business’s tax liability, which can help offset some of the costs you’ll incur.

Create Space for Relaxation

For the most part, when people go to work, they expect to do just that – work. That said, periodic breaks throughout the workday are pretty much the standard, whether it’s a lunch break or just a quick 15-minute break. One of the things you can do to make your startup a more attractive place to work is to have dedicated spaces for these breaks for your employees to relax.

Some options include indoor break rooms and outdoor patios. Offer your employees appliances like microwaves and refrigerators so they can keep their food cold during their shift and warm it up when it’s time to eat. In both instances, having comfortable seating that employees can use to relax can be a great perk, though the types of furniture you should use will differ between the two areas. It’s best to keep wood furniture out of the sun, so another material would be ideal for the outdoors.

Market Your Startup Well

Your customers aren’t the only ones you should be marketing your business to. You can offer all the best benefits, but if you don’t get the word out to job seekers, you aren’t going to be attracting many new employees. Marketing your business to job seekers is similar to marketing to consumers, but with a shift in terms of your target market.

When you post job listings on different job boards, be sure to advertise the benefits employees can expect to experience when working for you. You might include things like a salary range, the benefits you offer, and what to expect in terms of your company culture. As with all marketing, you can expect to shell out some money to get the results you want. Depending on your budget, you may find obtaining additional financing helpful in the short term.

Offer Competitive Compensation

It’s hard to talk about attracting employees to your startup without talking about how you’re compensating your employees for their time. There’s been a bigger push lately for businesses to pay their employees more, specifically in terms of providing a living wage.

What defines a living wage will depend on where you’re located, so be sure to take the local economy into account when deciding what to pay your employees. When you consider that most people don’t want to be working more than one full-time job to make a living, if you can afford to pay your employees a living wage, you’ll likely find job seekers lining up to work for you.

Allow Employees to Work Remotely

Remote work isn’t viable for every business and industry, but if yours allows it, consider allowing your employees to work remotely. That doesn’t mean that your workforce has to be 100% remote work all the time. Even allowing employees to work from home one day a week can be enough. Finding the right balance for your business will take time, but it can help increase job satisfaction among employees. If you choose to allow your employees to work remotely, invest in employee management software that can help you keep your employees connected and on task.

Invest In Employee Development

For career-minded workers, progression and upward movement within the company matter. In many cases, that requires additional training and a broader knowledge base. Employees like to see employers promote from within the company as much as possible. If you’re to do so successfully, you’ll need to invest in training your employees and aiding their professional development. Employers are likely to see an increase in employee loyalty and morale when employee development is done right.

If you want to attract the best employees you can afford, you need to start working on making your startup a great place to work now. The work environment and the perks you offer will go a long way towards making your business look attractive to employees. Of course, all of these things tend to cost money, so make sure you have a budget for all of that worked out. That will help you make sure you can get the financing you need to make your business a great place to work from the start.

Thinking of creating a startup business? Apply now to get the funding you need!