Best practices for reducing turnover and incentivizing employee performance
In today’s competitive job market, sometimes finding the right new-hire isn’t the most difficult part, but rather it is how you plan to retain them for years to come. In an interview with Jared Detwiler, VP of Operations at One Source Office Refreshment Services, he opens up about his organizations approach to recruiting and retaining his employees, and how seeking employee feedback can be one of the most important retention strategies.
“The most important thing you can do in recruiting talent is to share the points of differentiation within your organization—how you make their job easier with technology, flexibility in work times, providing time off, giving back to the community, and open lines of communication in the organization—all of these things can set you apart from other companies both in and outside of your market,” said Jared. As new generations step into the workforce, Jared has recognized that the strategy to retain employees can differ. “Sometimes people are more comfortable texting or Slacking, versus others want face-to-face time, so you just have to learn how to adapt and communicate to your employees in the way they seek to receive it,” said Jared.
One of the biggest changes that One Source has implemented is quarterly surveys to their entire employee base. This has enabled them to create a line of communication for employees to provide anonymous feedback and suggestions on how to improve certain aspects of the business. “Some of the ideas are quite simple for us to implement and so we find them extremely valuable in our approach to making improvements for our people and our business,” said Jared.
For today’s employees, One Source has found that performance reviews and setting clear goals are sometimes the key for people to start measuring and holding themselves accountable. “Without Seed and the technology that we have, it would be really difficult to develop those measurable goals, and people love those, and they want to achieve them,” said Jared. This has become the foundation to how they approach performance-based compensation as well, where employees are rewarded based on achieving metrics defined within their roles. Creating this has provided clear visibility for the employee to both track and monitor their own success against the goals set out for them earlier in the year.
Listen to the full podcast to learn:
- One Source’s recruiting and interview process that helps them both find and attract talent
- How different generations have different needs in their business
- Best practices for onboarding and training new hires, especially drivers – learn about his Driver in Training Program
- How they face challenges like turnover and use surveys to ensure they gather employee feedback – learn about his Good Day Program
- How technology has helped create work-life balance for Jared and his people
- Get the detailed metrics/KPI’s they track to manage performance across various employee roles
“The overarching theme is to never stop trying to improve your organization. Don’t be afraid to adopt new technology, and don’t be afraid to fail,” said Jared. One of the best lessons they learned a couple years ago was how implementing a technology tool like Seed Markets truly made everyone’s life easier from the route driver, warehouse staff, to managers. People weren’t operating out of multiple market platforms anymore and they were leveraging one set of tools and process across various roles. Technology can both make your people’s lives easier and create a better place to work for everyone.
About One Source Office Refreshment Services, Inc: Bob Betz founded One Source Refreshment, located in Pottstown, PA, 40 years ago with a mission to provide the best customer service in the vending industry. One Source Refreshment has grown to become the largest independent vending services provider in the Philadelphia, Lehigh Valley, New Jersey, and Delaware area, catering to clients both large and small. They pride themselves on superior customer service, state-of-the-art equipment, and a wide assortment of local food and beverages. Today, they operate 2,400 vending machines, over 100 micro markets, 400 OCS customers, and a handful of pantry-light locations. To learn more about One Source Refreshment visit their website.