When we say ‘living wage’, we mean it. Paying your employees a livable wage can be the difference between a modest albeit comfortable life and one rife with struggles. While it’s easy to expect the government to do something – or stop doing something – when it comes to creating the right economic environment, if you don’t pay employees fairly you’re the one losing out. While there are many ways that your business can suffer due to poorly paid employees, we’re going to be covering just a few of the most common:
Poor Job Performance
If your employees are up all night worrying about their bills, their work performance will inevitably take a dive. They will either be too tired, too hungry, too worried, or even too angry to focus on the tasks at hand. This can even lead to workplace violence and other serious problems. Offering a living wage and competitive bonuses can go a long way to upping the quality of work you receive from your employees.
Chronic Financial Stress
It’s not a business owner’s place to involve themselves in the personal lives of employees, but when you’re around someone for eight hours a day five days a week, it’s hard not to learn a thing or two about their lives off the clock. Does an employee seem to always be depending on quick cash personal loans to pay his bills? Is this the case despite the fact this employee doesn’t appear to spend lavishly on himself? Does he bring a calorie-dense but nutritionally lacking meal to work for lunch, like instant noodles? Signs like these point to an employee who isn’t getting paid enough.
Poor Employee Retention
When you pay employees fairly, you can expect better employee retention. You will save a lot of time and money when you don’t have to keep training new people. You’ll also find that your experienced employees feel more dedicated to and involved with the job as time passes, meaning you can expect more and better work from them. Couple this with suggestion boxes and quarterly improvement idea competitions to really help your employees feel like they make a difference and should stick around.
Spikes in Workplace Theft
You may think that because you don’t sell groceries or commodities that you don’t have to worry about workplace theft. But even office and odd jobs workers can find something to steal. Whether it be time, resources, workplace items, or even other employees’ items, workplace theft is much more common with poorly paid jobs. And if you have a trade secret, your employees are susceptible to spilling the beans for cash.
Sub-par Employee Quality
If you have a habit of not paying a living wage, then you’re probably aware of this problem. The people who stick around are not the cream of the crop. They aren’t the best and they don’t do a great job. All they do is stick around. That’s because they have no other opportunities. Even if you manage to snatch up a great employee, they will jump ship as soon as possible if you aren’t paying them well.
False Claims and Lawsuits
In a desperate attempt to make ends meet, employees who don’t receive fair wages can and usually will turn to lawsuits. This can be anything from unsafe work conditions to discrimination and harassment lawsuits. Whether these things are actually happening or not doesn’t matter. When you pay your employees a good wage, you can cut down on the number of false claims by employees.
Of course, there are lots of benefits to paying your employees fairly. These are just a few of the most prevalent. If you want to keep your ship sailing smoothly, then one of the easiest things you can do is start paying your employees better.
