Keeping your good employees happy is critical to ongoing success. Often times people leave a job not because the dislike the organization, or their co-workers or their compensation, but rather they don’t believe that they have any influence on how the job is to be performed or they have doubts about whether the job is essential. Thus, it is highly important to get your employees involved and get their input about the job.

A highly effective approach for gaining an employee’s input is to have that individual list the 10 most important items in the job and then rank them in priority order. The employee’s manager should do the same and the two of them then conduct a meeting to compare their lists and derive a final listing that encompasses their combined thoughts on how the job is to be best performed and which job duties are most important.

This meeting is also a good time to have the CRI employee performance improvement report at your fingertips. Simply have the employee complete the Achiever questionnaire online and provide CRI with a job description, and CRI will in turn by the following business day provide a confidential report to the employer reflecting an objective opinion on how the person matches the job and what their development needs are with suggestions as to how to best accomplish them.

Another tip for keeping good employees happy and motivated is the regular use of rewards. Certainly expressing your appreciation verbally is important, but material rewards are always appreciated. It’s easy to buy a dinner certificate to a nice restaurant or a gift card and give it to the employee as a thank you for the good job that they do.