Creating a highly engaged workplace begins with having competent employee retention strategies.
Hiring the right talent is difficult enough. But retaining them is a whole new challenge. One of the first signs of an employee on the verge of leaving a job is disengagement.
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Meaning of Employee Retention
Employee retention is an organization’s ability to retain its employees through specific policies and strategies that encourage an employee to stay with the organization for a more extended period of time and create a relationship of loyalty.
Successful businesses understand the importance of retaining their employees through employee retention strategies as they don’t have to spend money and resources to replace employees constantly, and in doing so have a happy and loyal staff that want to remain with the organization for the long term.
Why Do Employees Leave?
As a company, have you already put some employee retention strategies into play in maintaining impactful employees? If results are not positive enough and your best employees are leaving, then, your employee retention strategy needs an improvement.
Before then it is essential to understand first what possible reasons will make an employee want to leave. This will help you as a company or organization to determine where you are going wrong.
According to a survey by Linkedin, one of the main reasons why employees leave an organization is due to a lack of opportunities.
Most likely, an employee departing from a company will cite one or more of these reasons for leaving their job:
- Lack of recognition
- Inadequate salary (Note: In Robert Half’s Job Optimism Survey, 65% of workers said a salary boost is the main reason they are seeking a new job.)
- A perks and benefits package that isn’t competitive
- Limited career development or advancement
- The Feeling of being overworked or unsupported
- A need for better work-life balance
- Inadequate organizational management
- Boredom
- Concerns about the company’s direction or goals
- Dissatisfaction with the company’s culture
- The lack of desire to make a change a conflicting situations
- More compelling job opportunities at other companies
11 Employee Retention Strategies
Here are 11 strategic actions that will help boost your ability to hold onto valued workers:
- Create a bond with Employees
According to Marcus Buckingham, “People don’t leave jobs, they leave bad bosses”.
Therefore, it’s not a secret that the majority of employees who resign do not just leave because of the job but bad management by their managers.
A good manager strives to create a company-employee relationship and goes on to nurture and maintain such a relationship.
Also, Bonding outside of work is as important as bonds inside the office. For example, Excursions, company vacations, team lunches, and celebrating employees’ personal achievements like a new car or marriage.
- Improve the Recruitment Process.
Your organization will have a higher chance of succeeding in finding employees who respond well to the organization and are a good fit for their role if the preliminary hiring process is thorough and job candidates are properly screened and assessed.
Having elaborate job descriptions that define the specific skills, credentials, and experience required for the role on offer is essential.
- Focus on Developing Managers
Poor management causes many employees to leave their organizations.
In order to effectively manage their teams, businesses must make sure that their management teams receive proper training and development. Great managers exhibit qualities that encourage team productivity while allowing employees to grow into their roles with confidence.
- Develop a Culture of Recognition
A great way to boost employee morale is to develop a strategy for employees to recognize each other’s efforts and hard work, as well as a platform for employees to praise one another.
Organizations must foster an environment where employees are acknowledged for their hard work and dedication to their jobs. Giving positive feedback and publicly recognizing your employees will increase employee motivation and inspire all employees to strive for excellence.
- Explain the bigger purpose
Making your employees understand the company’s long-term goals and objectives is also an excellent way or strategy to motivate employees.
This will make employees feel mentally invested in the organization once they understand the purpose of their role and how their specific job contributes to the organization meeting its goals and objectives. explain.
Finally, you will want your employees to understand how important their work is in ensuring the organization’s success and WHY they are doing WHAT they are doing
- Conduct an employee stay interview
Stay interviews are an excellent way for the company to know and understand why employees want to stay with the company.
It is a protective measure that could identify employee dissatisfaction before an employee decides to leave the organization.
Although management may be hesitant to hear any negative feedback from their employees, all types of feedback from their employees are invaluable because it provides the company with knowledge of their employees’ experiences and enables the company to make the necessary changes to enhance situations before they reach a point beyond solution.
Typical Questions to Ask at Stay Interview
Below are examples of questions that can be asked during such interviews.
- What motivates you to stay with this organization?
- What would make you to leave this company?
- What aspects of management would you change to improve your work experience?
- What aspects of your job would you change to improve your work experience?
- Offering learning & development opportunities
As a company organizing a training & development team is important to ensure that employees have great development opportunities to advance their careers.
Your company should foster an environment in which employees believe they have a solid foundation from which to grow and expand.
For instance, most companies offer free access to learning platforms like Udemy, Coursera, or Allison learning. Employees are able to develop their skills using these various platforms, this alone is a strategy to retain employees.
Other Examples may include:
- Leadership programs that cultivate a character of greater responsibility at work.
- Mentorship programs that will improve their techniques for higher productivity.
An employee will recognize their role and be inspired to excel in order to advance their career development if their role is clearly defined and opportunities for future advancement are clearly defined.
- Balancing Work & Life
This is one of the employee retention strategies where your company creates the necessary balance between work and life, especially for nursing mothers or new parents, such employees will find it difficult to find a new job. having considerable family time is a priority.
Allowing work from home, sharing the workload, practicing flextime, and permitting a staggered work shift are good ways to reduce pressure on your employees.
Work shifts that are staggered can help in a more socially isolated workplace. The concept of staggered working hours in your company is that employees do not arrive and leave the office at the same time. This was mostly used during the pandemic.
- Changing Job Responsibilities
Doing the same thing over and over again becomes boring and tedious.
In that particular instance, don’t force employees to follow through on their responsibilities. Involve them in various tasks and give them the opportunity to collaborate with other departments. This will aid in the generation of new ideas and the improvement of coworker relationships. It will also improve and advance their professional development skills.
You can also try to encourage creativity and provide opportunities for personal growth!
- Develop an open communication culture
Organizations must dedicate themselves to open and transparent communication, and these communication lines must extend throughout the organization.
Ensure that employees have the necessary freedom to express themselves, communicate their ideas, offer suggestions and address conflict. When these communication channels are open, organizations will gain the trust of their employees.
- Offer attractive bonuses
Offering generous commission structures, competitive salaries, retirement savings plans, vacation leave, and subsidized medical plans are excellent strategies for employee retention. Incentives for vacation or telecommuting are more cost-effective benefits.
Free perks, such as the ability to work from home, flexible working hours, and bonus days off, are equally effective for organizations that do not have enough financial resources (tight budget). Even if that were not possible, public acknowledgment of work progress and a handwritten acknowledgment of their effort would go a long way toward fostering employee loyalty.
Other examples of free perks that can be offered to employees are:
- Casual dress code
- Office relaxation zone
- Conducive Staff library
- Team lunchtime
- Office gym
- Office games room
- Monthly appreciation message
- Employee social club
- Employee family time
- Fruit bowls.
Closing
If you believe your company is in danger of losing top talent, you must act quickly to strengthen your employee retention strategies.
Employers no longer hold all of the cards and employees are no longer obligated to work for companies that do not serve them. Understanding employee retention strategies is thus critical to retaining top performers.
It is also a good idea to re-evaluate your employee retention strategies periodically, and implement a statistical employee retention strategy rather than firing people outrightly. What we recommend is that you monitor the employee retention rate on a regular basis either half-yearly or quarterly.
After reviewing the various strategies, obtain feedback frequently and suggestions from your employees. That is how you get happy employees who enjoy coming to work every day!
