In today’s fluctuating labor market, employees are assessing their workplaces in new ways, and remote work removes geographic boundaries for job transitions. Consequently, employers must approach employee retention with a fresh perspective.
Rather than reacting with fear and alarm, embrace this change as an excellent opportunity to examine current employee retention strategies. If needed, now is the time to examine and refresh ways to improve employee retention. After all, you want your staff to feel valued, and having an intentional employee retention plan will make showing your appreciation for their work second nature.
Employee Retention Benefits
Why is it essential to retain employees? After all, remote work has not only widened the pool of prospective employers for workers, but it has also done the same for businesses searching for employees. With a labor market that makes replacing workers across many industries easier, is retaining employees worth prioritizing? In a word, yes.
Employee turnover is disruptive to a company’s workforce and costly in terms of time and money spent hiring and train new employees. It can also put unintentional stress on the remaining employees who must pick up the slack, fill in gaps, and help get new hires up to speed. However, losing institutional knowledge is the most significant cost to a company when talented workers leave—especially those who have been with the business long-term.
People who know how a business operates, from the big picture to the small and often unseen details, are invaluable. You can’t hire institutional knowledge; it only exists in people who have put time, effort, and labor into your business.
Employee Retention Strategies
Employee retention strategies cut costs for employers and increase productivity, improve morale, and empower workers to claim ownership of their positions and contributions to the company. Some of our employee retention ideas overlap with our tips for engaging remote employees, resulting in a stronger company and a more satisfied workforce.
Onboard Effectively
While the interviewing and hiring processes allow you to make an impression on a prospective employee, how you onboard a new hire now can impact future employee retention. Most of us who have had a few jobs have experienced at least one less-than-ideal onboarding experience—and we’ve likely never forgotten it regardless of how long we stayed with a company or how much we enjoyed working there. Effective onboarding is an excellent opportunity to set the tone for your new employee by providing a clear and concise training plan demonstrating your company’s operations. Plus, it sets up your new hire to receive ongoing support. Pairing up your newest employee with an experienced staffer can also help employee retention. Mentorship programs create job satisfaction for mentors and mentees and can foster rich and rewarding relationships that will help fuel personal development and company growth.
Compensate Well
There’s no way around it— offering a competitive salary is one of the most straightforward ways to improve employee retention, but even if you can’t afford to pay more than your competitors, offering bonuses and performance incentives, health care benefits, retirement plans, and other non-compensatory packages, can go a long way regarding staff retention. Perks are another employee retention idea many companies are making the most of—flexible schedules, casual dress codes, paid parental leave, and even snacks and lunches on the company tab are perks worth exploring.
Prioritize Professional Development
Very few people want to start at the bottom and stay there. People in entry-level positions want to work their way up to the middle, and folks in the middle want to make their way to the top. Opportunity for progress fuels both personal growth and professional development. To that end, encouraging employees to set professional goals and helping them meet them will strengthen your company’s workforce and encourage employee retention. Offering your staff mentorship, ongoing training, continuing education, updated equipment, and networking opportunities will help create an environment where everyone strives to stretch and grow professionally. Combine that with a policy to promote from within, and you’ll find investing in your staff leads directly to high employee retention.
Show Appreciation
Next to paying people well, the simplest way to encourage employee retention is by showing and telling your staff that you appreciate them and their work. Don’t just show your gratitude when your business achieves big wins—say thank you early and often for things large and small. Be transparent in your appreciation, encourage communication, prioritize work-life balance and team building, and foster an environment where the free exchange of ideas is rewarded. No one has ever left a company because they were over-appreciated and over-encouraged. However, people leave jobs daily because they feel their contributions have been overlooked or inadequately appreciated. There is no easier way to improve employee retention than to be generous in your gratitude.
In conclusion, in the current dynamic labor market, employees are reevaluating their workplaces and remote work has eliminated geographic barriers to job transitions. Therefore, employers need to adopt a new outlook when it comes to retaining employees. Instead of responding with apprehension, this shift should be embraced as a valuable opportunity to assess existing employee retention strategies. Now is the ideal moment to review and revitalize approaches to enhance employee retention. Ultimately, fostering a sense of value among your staff and implementing a deliberate employee retention plan will effortlessly demonstrate appreciation for their contributions. If you have any questions or need and HR services give us a call.