When you sell your business, you want to get the most value you can for it. This is the time you capitalize, literally, on all the hard work, the risks, and the sleepless nights you’ve endured as an entrepreneur. Being an Employer of Choice (EOC) could make your company the acquisition of choice when someone is looking to buy. Roger Herman & Joyce Gioia, authors of How to Become an Employer of Choice identify why life is less complicated for business owners in these kinds of companies;

1. Recruiting and Marketing get easier and less expensive. If people are attracted to your company, you have more résumés on file and less need to advertise for staff.

2. Improved performance and productivity. “Long-term employees understand the processes, the suppliers and the customers, and they become more efficient and effective in a team-centered environment.”[2]

3. Finding superior employees. As an EOC you’ll attract increasingly better quality of candidates. A richer pool enables you to be more selective, and put the right people in the right roles versus ‘bums in seats’.

4. Less stress, more fun. Working with employees who want to be there, who aren’t fighting with management or each other, who want the business to succeed, makes for a better working environment for everyone.

5. Business Continuity. Employees who like their jobs tend to stay. If they are happy in their current role, very few look for change only for the sake of change. The continuity of skills, knowledge and wisdom accrued over years of experience provides benefits to your clients and your company.

6. Greater attractiveness to investors. Investors like predictability and a positive future. An EOC that has the benefits listed above is simply worth more than one that doesn’t. If I had to choose between buying a recently profitable business that wasn’t an EOC and a consistently profitable business that was, I’d go with the latter.

Becoming an EOC doesn’t happen overnight. It’s one of those critical business strategies that have to be undertaken deliberately. It requires planning and action. It has to come from the top. If the owner isn’t onside, determined, and pushing forward on this strategy, it is unlikely happen. Here are a few attributes that top-quality employees are looking for:

• Flexible hours. Couples, in most households, work outside the home. If they are part of the sandwich generation they may be responsible for looking after elderly parents as well as their own children. Flextime allows them the latitude to do this with less stress.
• Training. When asked why they like working for an EOC, training is high on the list of benefits that employees are expecting from their employer. Continuous learning is required in most jobs if there is any hope for future advancement.
• Benefits. Once considered a luxury only for bigger companies, health, dental and insurance benefits are becoming an expectation – even for small businesses.
• Transparency. Many companies are moving toward an open-book approach that teaches employees how business works and empowers them to have bottom-line responsibilities for their departments. In his book Ownership Thinking, Brad Hams advocates for financial literacy and promotes self-funding bonus programs that employees control.
• Career paths. Employees like to know that their hard work and initiative can lead to promotions, increased responsibilities and higher wages.
• Strong leadership, mentoring and coaching. Employees are looking for frequent feedback that enables them to develop and grow in their roles and responsibilities. Managers who care, support and encourage their direct reports go a long way towards reducing attrition and attracting new talent.
  Becoming an Employer of Choice is an investment that pays off now as well as in the future. The key is to get started. Make a decision. Do you want to create a company that is considered an EOC or not? If yes or even maybe, get the ball rolling by talking with the people at Deboski & Co. They have created a unique employee retention strategy which expresses the value you place on your key employees and will ultimately lead you to a more successful transition of your business.