BOTH Officers and Underworld Contacts can be notoriously hard to hire and retain in these days of a competitive and dangerous job market. Employers can be very hard on these valuable skilled workers. With Pirate Captains and Spy Networks alike trying to cut costs, retention has become one of the great concerns of every supervisor. Partially, this is a product of the difficult commonplace hiring process, which requires a covert operation or a search through space debris just to get to the interview stage. But it is also a result of the practices many use to retain these important subordinates.
Instead of forcing your workers to stay through the use of drugs, restraints, duct tape, glue, and other forcible methods, it is more advisable to follow several tips to keep them happy.
1. Engage people in the work process.
Good employees want to feel like they are making a difference. You can create an environment where your employees can be part of the process, not just a cog in the process wheel. Discuss your goals with your fleet or faction and its different departments and get your employees involved in designing the systems and the improvement process. Create a feedback or suggestion system that actually considers ideas for creative spying or ambushes. You don’t have to implement every idea that an employee has, but if you give ideas careful consideration and involve the employee in the feedback and discussion loop, they’ll be thrilled.
2. Get the right people in the job and get out of their way.
You’ve spent a bunch of points hiring just the right manager for the new war you just declared. You even pay a signing bonus and moving expenses to get the new guy to town and settled in. You have complete faith in their ability to properly manage the new situation. So get out of their way and let them do their job. Don’t look over their shoulder and second guess every decision. Don’t micromanage or torture a good employee into submission. If you didn’t think they could do the job, why did you hire them in the first place? Constant dismissal while you look for the person you wanted instead is disspiritng!
3. Communicate your plan.
Nothing is worse for an employee than to be completely in the dark about your goals and objectives and evil plans for getting somewhere. They don’t have to know every detail, but do inform them about your latest strategic planning and how it will affect the direction of the whole enterprise. Employees know when you’re working on plans and they just want to know what’s going on.
If you engage your new employees you can avoid having to wall them into their workspaces and keeping them oppressed with threats and violence. Heck, you may even get a card for boss’s day!