While it's easier said than done financially, at the end of the day it's an ROI no-brainer: One of the best employee retention tips is to pay workers over the minimum wage.

This is going to come across as a "duh" statement to many business leaders reading this.  After all, you found this blog by searching for "team building," "workplace culture," or a similar term, which means you're very likely already drinking the Kool-Aid of the payoff of employee engagement – an assumption of that being paying people fairly.

But there is still a need to say this.  One reason why is because wage theft is incredibly rampant, even in a time of increased scrutiny of businesses and a wealth of legal resources for employees who can prove they've been shortchanged.  This post on Today's Workplace, for instance, charts the number of wage theft incidences just in Chicago.

Some time ago, Winning Workplaces Chairman Ken Lehman weighed in on the need to always pay above the minimum wage in an editorial.  Here was his justification:

Employers owe it to their workforces to show their commitment to them by paying them a sufficient living wage.  Many workers, especially low-income workers, are only one paycheck, one health care episode or one bad experience away from losing everything.  If one of those situations occurred, who could blame a worker for not having his or her mind be totally on the work?  The result would be a loss of productivity for the enterprise.

Therefore, paying workers a decent wage is not a zero-sum game.  Instead, it's a win-win scenario that improves employees' peace of mind and, consequently, the bottom line of organizations.

Echoing Ken is Ross Blake of workplace consultancy Employee Retention Manager.  In this post, Blake calculates the savings of only a 5% increase over the federal minimum wage, in terms of the turnover cost incurred, as almost $2,200 per employee!

So if you want to attract and retain top talent, and enjoy the competitive advantage you'll have from those folks working for you and not for your peers, purge "minimum wage" from your vocabulary.

What's your perspective here?