5 Ways to Retain Top Cannabis Retail Talent

Guest Author Bio: Jacob Carlson is the Co-Founder and CEO of EzHire Cannabis. EzHire is the “indeed for weed” or the hiring platform designed for the cannabis industry. Jacob just left HubSpot after 7 years on the Partner Sales management team in Feb 2022 to work on scaling EzHire. Jacob is a serial entrepreneur having previously co-founded a corporate event service (Just Enjoy!) and social media automation tool (RapidCrowd), and he is primed for scaling his next venture with his team of technology veterans

Finding reliable, talented employees for your cannabis business can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. It is crucial for your business and plays a part in your company’s long-term success. However, with so many different platforms, options, and opportunities to share your job posting nowadays, it can be hard to know where to start. 

Harder than finding the right employees, is retaining them. Keeping your employees happy is  key to keeping them around. We have some suggestions as to how to do just that.

1. Pay Above-Average Salaries

Obviously,  money is a massive motivator in this day and age. One of the most obvious ways for you to retain your top employees is to offer them better than average salaries and more benefits over time. This can help you lock employees in and even encourage them to stick around for the pay and perks alone.

You can also consider providing a specific retention bonus to give an incentive to stay in the company. You should take this advantage as it will save you the cost of having to hire more employees later on.

2. Allow Employees to Speak Their Minds When Necessary

Folks want to know that their input is valuable and that you are happy to hear their feedback. While it might seem pretty small, creating a comfortable company culture in which employees can freely speak up when necessary, can keep employees engaged and wanting to stick around for the long term.

Many employees want to speak up but often don’t for fear of retribution. This is why it is so important to ensure that workers always feel comfortable calling out the things that they would like to see changed.  

Giving them a voice will make you feel far more trustworthy as an employer while making them more comfortable in their role.

3. Encourage Input and Feedback

Much like allowing your employees to speak their minds when necessary, employees need to have the opportunity to provide input and feedback. You should consider using engagement tools such as TINYpulse, Officevibe, and Culture Amp in order to survey how workers are performing and how they are feeling in general. 

Then you can respond to your employee feedback in a timely fashion. Allowing your employees to speak up when something is going right or wrong will allow them to feel like they are a bigger piece in the company puzzle. This is obviously very important to employee retention.

4. Don’t Micromanage Your Employees

When it comes to your employees, you want to ensure that you aren’t micromanaging. Perhaps you may have already been told this before. However, it is important to know that micromanaging your employees can actually hamper productivity and turn off any high-performing employees from wanting to stick around long-term. 

Micromanagement has a negative effect on morale and also takes away the opportunity for employees to be able to create better results for themselves. This can damages relationships within the workspace as well as employee productivity which is why so many don’t stick around. Giving your employees the space to thrive while supporting them is the best way to manage people and will most likely create better employees.

5. Provide Enough Flexibility

Even before COVID-19 came along and rocked the entire world, flexible work schedules were in very hot demand by employees. People wanted more than ever to have the opportunity to work from home or have flexible workdays. Everyone these days has a lot going on, both inside and outside of work-life, and flexibility can provide a significant incentive that is destined to keep your best workers around.

Remember, flexibility is a two-way street. Employees must also be a good fit for your organization. But there are a lot of different ways for you to post your job and find high-quality people to hire. 

For example, sites like Indeed and ZipRecruiter are both great websites, but they don’t cater to the cannabis industry, which can lead to a lot of applicants who don’t quite fit your needs. Instead, fast-growing cannabis companies need an “Indeed” for weed, per se. EzHire Cannabis was founded with the idea in mind that it should be easier to find the talent that will help your business thrive. 

The Bottom Line

Finding the right people for your cannabis business is hard. It is even harder to retain this talent if you are not treating them right. After all, the key to building a truly successful brand is all about having the right people on your team.

Be sure that you take the time to consider some of these steps to improve your employee retention. When you find the right person for the job you want to keep them around. Mutual respect, good salaries, company culture, and flexibility will get you everywhere if you’re willing to work with your people as opposed to them working for you.

Protecting your cannabis company can seem confusing; however, we’re a full-service insurance brokerage working with carriers worldwide to offer you the best coverage possible. We’re here to help! Please reach out to us today by emailing [email protected] or calling 646-854-1093 to learn more about your cannabis insurance options.