The Caitlin Mitchell Show
After nearly a decade in business, it's time for me to share what I've learned about building a business focused on service leadership to help you on your journey as a business owner. My goal is for you to walk away from each episode with one thing - one sentence, one thought, one perspective shift, one new idea - that has an impact on you, your business, or your life.
The Caitlin Mitchell Show
How to Retain Top Talent in Your Company | Ep 16
Discover what keeps a company's heart beating: its people. In this episode, we'll talk about the art of keeping a business's most valuable players - the top talent that drives success. Drawing from EB Academics' ethos and stories of sports legends like Joe Montana and Steph Curry, I reveal how nurturing standout team members is pivotal for any organization's triumph.
Leadership isn't just about steering the ship; it's about ensuring every crew member is poised to shine. Tune in to hear personal anecdotes and the crucial steps for fostering an environment that values, respects, and propels top talent to their greatest potential.
Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caitlindmitchell/
Welcome back to another episode. We are going to be discussing how to retain top talent in your company. This is so incredibly important for a variety of reasons, so in today's episode, I'm gonna talk to you about why it is important to number one retain top talent for the success of any organization, but then I also wanna talk to you about how exactly to do that. I'm gonna share some of the strategies that I use and the way in which I've really built the business at EB Academics, because the majority of my team has been with me for quite a long time. The business is only 10 years old, so we've only had staff for about five years or so. A lot of my staff has been with me since the beginning and has grown with the business. It's interesting. I hear a lot of stats about how most of your staff who's with you right now is not going to be with you in five years. And yes, while that can absolutely be true, as the business grows and changes, I also think it's really possible to hire top talent from the beginning. I also think it's very possible to help cultivate great talent at your company and the people that you see through your hiring process, through your type of leadership, all of those things. So I'm excited to dive into today's episode. I hope it serves you in a great capacity and, if it does, please let me know over on Instagram, send me a direct message at Caitlin D Mitchell or leave me a review on iTunes. That would mean a lot to me. I do read the reviews and it helps give me motivation to keep going and sharing my thoughts on this podcast, as this podcast really is just a passion project of mine and it's just something that is a way for me to give back in a greater capacity in what I feel like is my calling here on this earth. So, without further ado, let's dive into today's episode, all right. So, like I mentioned in the intro, we are going to be talking about the topic of talent retention, and it's really important to retain top talent for the success of any organization, and I want to just share a story with you and then give you kind of like a sports analogy, as per usual.
Speaker 1:So the other day I was sitting on a call with our developers for EB academics. For my education company, we're building a brand new app. It's costing the business a lot of money. There's a lot at stake. It's a big game that we're playing right now and it's a little bit stressful. But I'm sitting on this call with two of my top team members and the way in which they were answering the questions of the developers, the way that they knew the vision, the way that they understood what we were doing, their buy-in to it, their care about what we were doing, was just as much as mine. And I sat there looking at these two staff members, just so filled with gratitude to have these two incredible women on my team that I just sat back and almost was brought to tears because I was just so thankful for these type of people that I get to work with on a daily basis at my company, and I just think that is such a great story of what's possible when we have great talent on our teams.
Speaker 1:You know, so often I'll hear people say well, you know, my staff or my employees just don't care as much as I do. Well, I don't think that that's necessarily true. I would argue that I think the majority of my staff, if not all of my staff, cares just as much as I do about what we're here to do together, and I think there are a lot of things that go into that that I've talked about in past episodes and that we could talk about for many hours on the podcast. But I just think that it goes to show that when we have top talent, remarkable things are possible for our businesses. And that ties into using sports as an analogy. If you look at organizations like the Lakers, or if we're talking about the Warriors or the Niners franchise, when we won so many games in the 80s or the Giants, they won what? Three World Series in a row. It's like a dynasty or something, I can't remember the terminology. But you look at those teams and you look at those organizations and you look at the talent. Who are the top talent on those teams that led them to those great successes? It's people like Joe Montana, it's people like Steph Curry, it's people like love them or hate them, barry Bonds. Right, those incredible talents have such an impact on an organization and I don't think that we should really look at our teams and our staff any differently. In fact, I would argue that when we start to look at our teams and our staff much in the same way, I think it creates something really special. When we're looking at our organization, you know, when we have that top talent on board. It makes the world of a difference for a company, and I think about you, too, as a leader being top talent.
Speaker 1:How are you constantly working on your own leadership skills? You know what seminars are you going to? What masterminds are you a part of? What books do you read? What personal development do you go through? Like you've got to be growing in your own leadership skills to become a great talent manager, if you will, a great coach, so that you have great talent on your team. There was this great article that I read recently and I can't remember what publication it was in it may have been in Forbes where they were just talking about Aaron Rodgers, not, I mean whatever. However you feel about Aaron Rodgers, we don't need to have that conversation, but they're talking about Aaron Rodgers, and Aaron Rodgers was talking about how just some things had happened with the Packers and their management and the people at the top that he did not feel valued, and it really caused a lot of issues within the Packer organization, and I think that that just goes to show that when we have great talent, we've got to be great leaders in order to retain them, in order for them to stay Sure.
Speaker 1:There are all kinds of other things that we're going to talk about in today's episode, but a lot of it comes down to you. You know, and you think about as a as a student, as if you were ever an athlete the greatest teachers are the greatest coaches. We liked them, we respected them, we valued their leadership. We maybe didn't love them all the time I know I definitely had a high school coach that I didn't absolutely love but I knew he was a great coach and I knew he was making the right decisions and I knew he was making the right calls for me and I just think that we get to step into that same capacity as the leader of our teams. When you think about it from a coach's perspective, can you, as the leader, handle a LeBron James on your team? And if you can't, you got to step up your game. You got to start acting like Steve Kerr and some of those great coaches of our time. So coaching leadership that is a huge part of great retention, but not something that we're going to necessarily cover in this episode.
Speaker 1:I want to give you something a little bit more tangible. So, before we dive in, I want to talk about why retaining top talent is so crucial to the success of your company. You probably already know this, but I think it's important to reiterate and to spend some time shining light on a few specific things. So I was reading this article from Valesco Industries and they outlined five different reasons why retaining top talent is so crucial. Number one is they talked a lot about it driving innovation and creativity. If we have creative thinkers, if we have innovators on our team, these are people who are going to come up with ideas like the iPhone right, or like some aspects of what Microsoft has done, or people at SpaceX, or I just think about even the woman who designed the Nike logo, the swoosh right.
Speaker 1:When we talk about innovation and creativity, that comes from our team. Sure, it might come from you, but it's also going to come from the people on our team, and it also might not come from you. You might not be the most innovative or creative thinker. You want to surround yourself with people like that. You want the best talent on your team. We also see improved productivity and efficiency. So let me give you an example of this, specifically from my team. There's a woman on my team, katie, who is responsible for our marketing manager. She's our marketing manager. She manages all of the deadlines, all the things, yada, yada, and we got into such efficiencies and such productivity within our marketing department that it freed up so much of her time that she's actually able to take on more within the business and contribute even more to the company and grow even more in her role at EB, which is huge, right. If I didn't have great talent, that wouldn't necessarily be the case. So that's just a simple example, but I think it's a poignant one that is easy to see how that could translate into your own business.
Speaker 1:We also have enhanced company reputation and brand image. So I think about my salespeople when I think about this one. So I have two incredible women on my team who are in our school sales department and they're going to go. They go out and visit our schools. They go out and they're in front of our principals, they're in front of our teachers. They are a representation of the brand and if I don't have great talent in those roles, how is the brand being represented? How is the company being represented by them when they go out into our customer base? Same thing when we're talking about customer success. You know our customer success team and how they're responding to emails, like.
Speaker 1:All of that matters for creating this company reputation and the brand that you want people to identify with you. It also boosts employee retention and morale. When we have top talent, when we have people who are all going after the same thing, who are excited, who are motivated, people want to be there, People want to show up, people love their jobs, people are happy coming to work and busting their ass for you because they love what they're doing. When they don't love the leadership, when they don't love their role, when they don't love the culture, when they don't love the team, they're not staying and you're going to lose your top talent when that happens. So we want to not do that. The other thing, too, is that you obviously you gain a competitive advantage, and I think about my staff. You know there are 16 employees at EB and I think about my staff and the competitive advantage that we have and where we're going. Right now, this would not be possible. The next phase, the next level of what we're doing at EB, which I'll share with you in the coming months as we start to kind of share what that is. We have a significant competitive advantage because of who we are and how we operate, and that is because of the people on my staff. That is because of the people on my staff. You build the people. The people will build your business, and that is so freaking true.
Speaker 1:It's also really important to retain top talent because there are costs associated with employee turnover. So we want to be able to keep our great staff members for all the reasons that I just listed. But then there's also a huge downside too to having people leave right, having employee turnover some of our great staff, we don't want them to go. So when we lose staff right, we're faced with having to rehire. That means hiring costs. That means the lose staff right, we're faced with having to rehire. That means hiring costs. That means the hiring process, which is a pain in the ass. That means training costs, time to return to full productivity. It simply costs more money and can slow the business down.
Speaker 1:When we have, especially an integral, talented staff member leave, we also have a lot of attrition in the company. When that happens, thatrition in the company. When that happens, that can impact the company culture. So if you constantly have new staff coming in and out of the business in and out of the business. That impacts morale, that impacts who's there.
Speaker 1:I just talked about this in our most recent episode my hiring process on episode 14, my guide to building a stellar team. So I talked a lot about how important it is that whoever I'm hiring to come in, that person can have a huge impact on the team. One bad seed, one bad apple on the tree right Ruins a whole bunch and we don't want that to happen to our staff. And if we constantly have a revolving door of people coming in and out our staff and if we constantly have a revolving door of people coming in and out, man, that's really hard to nurture that strong company culture and that strong really allegiance to the team and to what you guys are doing together. Like I said at the beginning of this episode, you know most of my staff has been with me for quite a while. You know the company is young, we're only 10 years old, but it shows.
Speaker 1:You know you just have I again always go back to sports you just have people on the team who just get it, they just get each other, they just know how we work, they know how we operate, they know how to communicate together. There's a level of trust, there's a level of cohesion. It's like when you have that relationship with a quarterback and wide receiver and they just boom, they just make it, they just meet. Every single time the quarterback doesn't even need to know that the wide receiver is going to be there. It's just this like sixth sense. That's what it's like when you have just this incredible team that works together and knows each other so so well other and knows each other so so well.
Speaker 1:So hopefully that gives you just a little bit of an idea of why retaining top talent is so important for the success of your business. So if you were ever kind of like, well, it's not that important, it's freaking important. So now I want to talk about how to retain great talent. Number one we hopefully all know this, but how do we do this? Number one we hopefully all know this, but how do we do this? We want to create a positive work environment. Your role as the leader of the team is to lead the energy of the company. You are responsible for that, so your energy impacts the energy of the team. So your role is crucial in developing this positive work culture. And now I'm not saying that you got to be happy all the time. But I am saying that you got to be positive all the time.
Speaker 1:Let me give you an example of something that happened recently in the business. So we're working on a teacher planner. I have no desire, just for the record, to go into a physical product space. It's a lot. I'm learning all kinds of great new things, which is really fun. But we got our first planner prototype back and it was just kind of a letdown. And I was talking to one of my staff members about it and she was kind of feeling frustrated by it. I was kind of feeling frustrated by it and my dad gave me just this great thought. He goes it's just a prototype. He's like that's just your first prototype. It's cool, great, what are you going to do next? And I'm like damn, what a great perspective. I wish that I had originally shown up with that perspective with this particular staff member, because I think we could have moved out of where we were like the pissed off state a little bit faster and made a little bit more progress. But now that she and I've had this conversation, it's just a prototype, this is just the first stepping stone. Now she went back to the drawing board and she's like honestly, I love the planner so much more now. So it's all happening in a really positive capacity.
Speaker 1:We've got to be able to frame it in such a way for our teams and when we talk about creating a positive work environment, this comes from culture. This just comes from your company culture and I actually talked about this in one of my very first episodes with core values. You know you use core values as a way to build that company culture at your team. So that's episode two, one of the very first ones. I highly suggest you go back and take a listen to that one, because it really does help you strategically build the culture of your team. And in fact, in preparing for today's episode, I actually reached out to some of my staff and I asked them you know, can you tell me why you love working for EB, like, what is it about working for this company that keeps you here? That retains you here? Because it's not like I'll be, it's not like I'm paying people like $200,000 a year salaries. You know we're still a startup company, we're in our infancy. I hope to be able to do that someday, but that's not where we are right now.
Speaker 1:And one of my staff members, brooke, responded. The very first thing she said was culture, culture, culture, culture, she said, increasingly. Creating a team dynamic that allows everyone to experience that feeling of being valued, trusted and important to the success of the business is huge. So I want you to think about what she just said. The business is huge, so I want you to think about what she just said Creating a team dynamic that allows everybody to experience the feelings of being valued, of being trusted and of being important to the success of the business. People want to feel like they're contributing to the overall success of the company and people thrive off of being recognized for that, and that's something I'll talk about here in just a second and I just think about as a CEO. This is why it's so important to surround yourself with masterminds, coaching programs, other people who are able to feed into you.
Speaker 1:And to recognize you is so important because I think about my job at the business as a CEO is I'm not gonna take recognition for anything. To recognize you is so important because I think about my job at the at the business as a CEO is I'm not going to take recognition for anything. My goal is to help my team feel recognized, feel valued, feel important, but I'm not going to get, I'm not expecting that back from my team. I'm not expecting them to say hey, keelan, you're such a great leader right, I got to get that elsewhere. But I think it's really important for you to understand that you've got to feed into that part of who you are as well and that's not going to be something necessarily that's going to come from your staff. That's going to come from probably other places. It might come from your staff and I definitely do receive compliments from my staff every so often but it's not something that is expected and it's not something that's done in the same way that I am intentionally fostering that with my staff on at least a weekly basis. I mean all the time I'm constantly showing them that they're valued, trusted and important to the success of the company.
Speaker 1:So when we are fostering a positive work environment, we talk about culture. It's also important to have open communication. You also want to have some sort of recognition in place for the business. So, talking about open communication, one of my staff, carrie I asked her the same question. She said we are able to have communication between all team members and it's truly transparent. So we've created a workplace environment where psychological safety really exists. You know, megan on my team said that she feels safe to voice her opinion on matters and she feels like her input matters and is heard, like that is so important to have that open communication, where I've just got an open door policy. You can come talk to me about anything at any time and you're never going to be judged by me. I'm never going to make you feel bad. We're going to work together to solve the problem. And that open communication starts with you. And in fact, that's what last week's podcast episode was all about was communication strategies to create clarity and team success. And if you're not input, what's the word I'm looking for? If you're not utilizing some of those communication strategies, you're really missing out on a great opportunity to foster this positive workplace environment where people feel like they can actually share and be heard and have that open communication, not just with you but with themselves and other staff members as well.
Speaker 1:The last thing here is just having some sort of recognition programs in place and actually lies. I'm going to go into that here in just a moment. So one of the things that I want to move into now is opportunities for growth and development, and then I want to talk about recognition, because I don't want to go out of order of my notes. Sorry, I got a little off on a tangent there. So we want to have opportunities for our staff for growth and development, right, we want to make sure that we are giving people not only the type of work that they do well, but also the type of work that they enjoy and also the type of work that they can grow into and have an opportunity to do more of that type of work at a higher level.
Speaker 1:So I'll use Megan as a perfect example. She started off as our executive assistant about a year and some change ago and when I hired her I knew she was going to be perfect for for sales at some point in the future when the business had the capacity to hire for that role and we were able to get there a couple of months ago and she was great at EA. Great, super organized, efficient, like loved having her as my EA and I knew there was more for her in this other department at the company. And so when we got to that point, I'm like, hey, do you wanna try this, do you wanna do this? She's like yes, please, I would love to. So I gave her that opportunity. But I know her and I know the way that she operates is. She didn't need a ton of direction for me, she just needed an intended outcome. She just needed some support and the opportunity to just go and figure it out and she's just been absolutely crushing it for us in our school's department and I just think that's such a beautiful, tangible example of giving our staff the opportunity to grow in the business and their opportunity to see future potential growth for themselves as well.
Speaker 1:You know I think I've shared this before in the past we have a vision for the company. That vision really needs to be large enough for our staff to see the vision for their lives inside of it. So if the vision is too small, they're going to go elsewhere and they're going to find somewhere else that is able to hold their life's vision within the vision of that business. And I think that's why, at least for myself personally, I ended up leaving a couple of jobs in the past is my vision for my life was so much greater than what I was being given the opportunity or even the future potential opportunity to have in my life, and so I left, and everything always works out the way that it's supposed to, but I just think that's a prime example of having great talent leave because your vision just isn't big enough to hold theirs. So I think that's really important with the growth development of your team, et cetera.
Speaker 1:One of our core values at EB Academics is growth oriented, so our staff is supported and encouraged to read books, to take courses, to attend trainings, et cetera. I flew out two of my staff members to go to social media marketing world with me for three days. Yeah, it was a cost to the business and what a remarkable opportunity for them. I was able to fly another staff member out to a professional development conference for English teachers. I'm always thinking of ways of how can I pour into my staff to help them grow, because as much as I want to grow, they want to grow too, and as the leader, I'm given so many beautiful opportunities and masterminds and access to so many great thinkers and expansive thinking. I got to bring that to the table for my team as well. The last thing that I'll share here with growth and development is and I don't know that necessarily falls under this umbrella, but this is something that we do that I think is important and I'm placing under this umbrella, is that I constantly ask my staff for their ideas and I ask them to share them and then a lot of the times, they're considered and implemented. So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1:Yesterday this happened we are having an issue with our Facebook group, which is fun, love Facebook. And I had an idea of, okay, let's try this. And I was like can I get your guys' feedback on this? Where are my holes? And I had like five different staff members like that's a terrible idea, we should actually do this. Here's another idea let's go this route. Blah, blah, blah. And I was so thankful that I have a team who's willing, who feels comfortable and able to say I don't know. That that's a great idea, let's go this route. And for me, as the leader, to be like you guys are a hundred percent right. That was a terrible idea. I think that we should go this way and I think that that's kind of what I'm talking about of fostering this culture, this community of communication, of the ability to grow and feel comfortable as leaders in their own right, within their own roles in the company.
Speaker 1:So the last thing here I wanna talk about is recognition. We constantly are acknowledging our team and staff and being appreciative of their contributions. This can be something as simple as having a glow channel in your Slack or however you guys communicate as a staff, of constantly recognizing and shouting people out to the team in front of others, others, so that they feel that public recognition, that intrinsic motivation to do well, to perform well, to continue going right. We all need that. We're human. It's just a part of being a contributor in society is it feels good when someone recognizes our contributions. So how can we do that and facilitate that and foster that on a consistent basis in our companies? Simple as a Glow channel with your staff of recognizing them. I will also constantly thank my team. I am constantly saying thank you, I am constantly expressing my gratitude to them for the work that they do, and I think it creates really hard workers when people feel recognized and they feel valued by you as their leader. So if you think you say thank you enough, I would suggest you say thank you more, be over filled with gratitude, and I really believe that you will see the benefits of that, because people care that freaking matters, especially coming from their boss.
Speaker 1:Okay, next point that I want to talk about in retaining great talent. We talked about creating a positive work environment. We talked about opportunities for growth, development, recognition. The next point I want to cover is building strong relationships with employees. When we have a strong foundation with our staff, it ties all of this together. It creates this psychological safety, it creates open communication, all of that stuff. So we want to I want to highlight the importance of effective leadership in retaining top talent, in how you choose to show up in your relationships with others and your interpersonal communication with others. A players do not want to work for B leaders and you don in your interpersonal communication with others. A players do not want to work for B leaders and you don't want to be a B leader.
Speaker 1:So how can you start to build trust, to provide support, to have a strong foundational relationship with your staff? And I believe that that starts with honesty. I believe that starts with being vulnerable. I believe that starts with being vulnerable. I believe that starts with building trust in a variety of different instances where you are who you say you are. You are not putting on airs in somebody that you're not right. What you show up as is who you actually are in the business and people really appreciate that. They respond to that. You know what you're going to get Like. I'm intense and I'm also kind. I also care a lot about you. I'm also going to hold you to a really high freaking standard, and my team really appreciates that in me as their leader. So what are the qualities about you that is going to allow you to build strong relationships with your staff? That is gonna allow you to build strong relationships with your staff and this is where communication is just so crucial to your success as a leader with your team, and that's why I recorded episode 12 and 15 to support you more in fostering that type of relationship with your staff.
Speaker 1:We can't have a strong relationship if we can't have tough conversations with our team. We can't have a strong relationship if we can't have tough conversations with our team. We can't have a strong relationship if we aren't effective communicators with our team. So episode 12, if you haven't had a chance to go back and listen to it is all about how to have difficult conversations with your team members. How do we sit down and do that? How do we do that in such a way that doesn't fracture the relationship but instead creates a stronger bond, a place where you are a place of safety for people. They feel comfortable coming to you.
Speaker 1:And episode 15, talking all about communication strategies I didn't realize how valuable being a communications major was going to be for me in my life, but to have all of these nuances of interpersonal communication skills is freaking huge and it's all stuff that can be learned. So if you have not listened to those two episodes, I highly, highly suggest you go back and do that. And if you have listened to them again, because these are lifelong skills that we are constantly working on on ourselves in order to build those strong relationships with our staff and I talked about this at the beginning a little bit, but just the whole concept of an open door policy you want to make sure that you are available to your team when they need you. You are the coach. You are the coach on the sideline. Your team is in the game playing. You've got to be there to coach them. They come out of the game, they're injured. They come out of the game, they're frustrated, they get on the sideline or whatever, and they got to talk to you. They need you, they need your support, they need your energy, they need your motivation and that's why I always have this open door policy. You can always, always, always come to me and I am never going to make you feel bad, I'm never going to be mad at you, we're never going to have a problem, and in fact, I'm going to deeply appreciate the fact that you did come and talk to me, and I'll give you an example of this in action.
Speaker 1:In my business, katie I love her so much. One of our staff members sent me a message on Friday of last week saying hey, I'm considering applying for this other job. It's an executive assistant role and you know, I just I felt the need like I gotta pass it by you and I feel comfortable coming and talking to you about this, and so I just wanted to share with you where I'm at. If I didn't have an open door policy, if she didn't feel comfortable coming to me and having that conversation, we would have never been able to come to the conclusion that, hey, heck, I actually need an executive assistant and I want Katie to fill that role. That conversation never would have happened if she didn't feel safe and comfortable coming to me and talking to me about it, because she knew that I would not be mad. She knew that I would not judge her. She knew that I was going to be there for her to help her be the best version of herself, live the best life that she can live, right. So I'm always thinking about my staff, like what is it about them that I can help contribute so that they can live the life that they want to live? I think that's so important in helping people be happy in their roles, at your job, at your company.
Speaker 1:All right, the last thing that I want to talk about, and some actionable strategies here as well, is helping avoid burnout with our staff. You may have experienced burnout as a CEO, as an entrepreneur. I've definitely experienced it in the past. I've gotten a lot better at managing my energy. But I was reading a recent article from Forbes and it's called winning the talent war how to attract and retain top employees, and they noted that in today's workforce, burnout is pervasive. 74% of employees experience it at some point. That's a lot of people. Nearly unanimously, 95% of HR managers believe burnout has the most severe consequences for employee retention, and burnout permeates the workforce, lowering productivity, morale and engagement.
Speaker 1:So what can we do as CEOs and leaders of our teams to help ameliorate burnout and if we feel a staff member facing it, how can we be there for them? What can we do to help lessen some of the burden on their plate for a brief period of time, or whatever it might be? This is where that open communication with your staff is key. They've gotta be able to come to you and say, hey, my plate is really full, I need help with this and not feel bad or feel less than or whatever it might be. So at EB, a couple of actionable strategies that you guys can take.
Speaker 1:We provide a flex time off policy. This is something that I would talk to a labor lawyer about, about how to structure yours, but we don't have, you know, you only get 10 days of holidays a year. I remember when I was a teacher, we got 10 days and you actually didn't really get 10 days because they were only sick days, they weren't vacation days, and in fact there was one day that I had to take off to go to my brother's wedding and they made me lie and tell them that I was sick because I couldn't request a day off at all on the calendar during the school year my other job when I worked in corporate America I did not get a vacation day until I hit six months of working there. Then when I hit six months, I earned a day. The seventh month I earned another day of paid vacation and I'm like we are not doing that at EB. So our flex time off policy is very flexible. That's why it's called a flex time off policy and staff can take holidays whenever they want. It just has to be approved by me. We can do paid or unpaid holidays. There are all kinds of nuances to it and that's why I would highly suggest that you reach out to a labor lawyer to get specifics around how you construct your flex time off policy, depending on what state you live in and all of those different types of laws. But I love it because it allows my staff to, if they need to take a week with their family to go on spring break and there are no like vacation days that they're using up, right. So flex time off policy love it huge.
Speaker 1:We also have monthly mental health holidays for our team. So every month the team gets a paid vacation day. Typically it's a Friday that's butted up to like another vacation day, so they'll get a four-day weekend, or we'll restructure it so they get two three-day weekends throughout the month, but those are mental health holidays. The team is expected to not work on those days at all. And then there's also downtime during certain times of the year, like Q4 is kind of relaxing at EB, q2, q3, we go hard, it's the freaking Super Bowl for like six months and everybody knows like we got to work our butts off for this time period. We all know it, our head's in the game, we're all working hard together, myself included, and I think that knowing that that that's coming allows people to really manage their energy differently.
Speaker 1:We also close our offices for the holiday break during December, so the team gets that as a paid vacation. So we're closed for about 10 days and the whole staff gets paid for that vacation. Everybody knows offices are closed, customer support's closed, everybody's closed, and everybody is able to spend time with their families. I just think that's so important to gift that to our staff, if we are able to, and we're in a position to be able to do that, because I do think that that has such a huge impact on that burnout. People need breaks, right, the rest is in. The work is in. The rest is something that James Wedmore has said to me before and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so hard though that's not me, but our staff is. You know, our staff needs that rest time to come back recharged, ready to go, et cetera.
Speaker 1:And then, just also in general at the business, I place a huge importance just on health and wellbeing. You know I talk a lot about personally going to the gym, working out. I've motivated some of my other staff members to be doing the same thing and taking care of their physical bodies to help them take care of their mental health. All of those things so it's something that is highly valued at our business is just understanding. I don't like the word balance, but just work-life harmony. You know, how can we live a harmonious life where we can work our butts off and we can rest as well? I think that those two can simultaneously and should support each other in order to live a harmonious existence.
Speaker 1:So, conclusion some actionable takeaways. Hopefully you guys have some ideas to go back to, but I just think a great overall analogy for this, just in general, is that if you think about your customers, it's so much more cost effective to retain a customer than it is to gain a new one. Our team should be thought of no differently. When we retain great talent, great freaking things happen for our business. So I would love for you to share stories with me over on Instagram of how you've retained some of your great talent.
Speaker 1:If you have other strategies that you utilize as well that you want to share with me, I'd love to hear from you. So definitely send me a direct message at Caitlin D Mitchell over on Instagram. But if you just take any one thing away from today's episode, I just really truly believe in the power of open, honest, safe and trustworthy communication with you as the leader. None of this stuff exists without that. So it really comes down to you and who you are as the leader in retaining top talent on your team. Are you guys? Have a great week and I will see you next week on the podcast.
