Like all areas of Human Resources, Training and Development is very important. As Merry Tidwell suggested, training-needs analysis would be a great idea. Figuring who needs training is a great place to start because without good, well-trained employees, the company will suffer. In my current job, since I am new and moldable, I was asked to help retrain other employees with better work habits. Since I have been training my fellow employees, business has been doing better.
As Kendall Gailbreath suggested, companies should offer a paid vacation each year. We are, in fact, the only first world country that doesn’t have the required 6 week vacation annually. Choosing their starting pay can be really tricky, but if it is weighed against how much time off is available, and then the employees would choose what they prefer: the pay or the time off. I think letting employees chose what benefits they receive at reasonable costs is a great way to keep your employees. My father-in-law used to work for a company that not only paid him handsomely, but also sent him and his colleagues on annual trips. They sent them to Reno every year to go to business conferences but also to go play. Of course, not everyone was able to go, only the ones that were stellar employees could go.
Having the right training and the right incentive programs for employees are a couple of great ways to get employees to do the best they can for the company. Sometimes these can make or break a company. If employees aren’t trained and retrained, if need be, then they aren’t doing what is best for the company and the company will struggle and eventually fail. Once those employees are trained, then give them the option of what kind of compensation they feel is worth it to them. The trick is to weight the benefits against the wage or salary so the business isn’t getting swindled by a slick employee that wants all the pay and benefits.