One major dilemma that companies regularly face is losing valuable employees. While there are many reasons for this, employee retention strategies are missing among the strategies companies utilize in their operations and success.
Although this happens to almost all businesses, some businesses have found a way to harness these employee retention strategies to their advantage. However, there are companies that are yet to resolve the issue of mass exit of employees.
In this blog post, we’ll be considering what employee retention is all about and some of the reasons employees leave their company to work somewhere else. In addition, we’ll be examining the seven best employee retention strategies that could be used to retain employees and, finally, the benefits of doing so.
What is Employee Retention?
Employee retention is the ability of a company or organization to prevent employee turnover, either through voluntary or involuntary means.
In one famous quote by Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany, she said that,
employee retention is the foundation of any successful organization. Our people are our greatest asset, and we must invest in them to ensure their satisfaction and engagement.
As emphasized by Angela Merkel, it’s important that companies take employee retention very seriously, ensuring they mitigate any form of voluntary turnover.
Moreover, every company strives to increase its employee retention rate by taking appropriate actions to benefit the employees and the company.
Reasons why Employees leave their Workplace
Several reasons make employees leave their workplace. From several interviews with employees who left their workplace, some of their reasons include:
i.) Inadequate salaries that match the cost of living in that locality
ii.) Uncompetitive perks and other benefit packages
iii.) Limited advancement in their careers
iv.) They feel overworked or unsupported by their employers.
v.) Lack of recognition
vi.)The need for a better work-life balance
vii.) Dissatisfaction with the workplace culture
7 Employee Retention Strategies Crucial for Entrepreneurial Success
Sometimes, organizations lose their valuable talents to other companies for one reason or another which takes a toll on the company’s activities and operations. In addition, they lose employees for different reasons, such as relocation and getting another job.
The best way to avoid voluntary employee turnover is to employ strategies that can aid employee retention. These strategies have been and are being used by companies around the world. The strategies are:
1. Onboarding
The first indication that a company wants to keep its employees for the long term begins with an effective onboarding process into the company. Here, companies provide adequate training to new employees by offering them the information they need to excel at work.
Additionally, the tone at which employees receive their training shows the company’s nature. Moreover, it reveals whether the company have plans for long-term employee retention and determines whether employees stay.
Read also: Employee training methods: Top 11 HR techniques to explore
2. Offer Competitive Salaries
You must factor in their payment based on their worth to get your employees to stay with your company.
Nothing motivates employees as much as when they get paid for the value they bring to your company. Additionally, when paying your employees, you’ll have to consider the cost of living in the state or city where your company is situated.
Furthermore, you need to consider how much their colleagues earn in other companies and the volume of work they’ll have to do. Hence, paying your employees what they deserve will lead to a high employee retention rate.
3. Provide a Flexible Work Schedule
Employees like it when they have flexible work hours, or even, at best, when the hours are reduced, as it creates room and time for them to be creative and more productive.
According to a 2014 study by Standford University, workers’ productivity declines as they exceed 50 hours of work per week.
Moreover, this excessive work could lead to fatigue, inefficiency, and a heavy decline in productivity. Hence, companies should offer flexible work hours to employees to allow them to perform at their peak levels.
4. Promote a Work-Life Balance
Employees should be given the chance to find balance in their work-life endeavours. This means you’ll have to promote work-life balance in your company for your employees and yourself.
Some of the things you could do to promote this idea include providing a flexible work schedule and reducing work hours. Additionally, you could encourage your employees to refrain from taking work activities home.
By promoting a culture of work-life balance, you can increase the chances of retaining your employees.
5. Recognize and Reward Your Employees’ Work
It’s way easier to retain employees when they see that their inputs into the company are appropriately recognized and rewarded. In addition, studies have shown that employees who feel this way are usually more productive.
You must publicly recognize your employees’ work so that others will know they will be recognized for their work. Furthermore, it’s important to know that you should recognize the results and the efforts they put into the process.
The reward could be cash bonuses or paid time off, which could motivate them. Moreover, be sure to ask your employees what their preferences are for their ideal reward. Hence, recognizing and rewarding your employees’ work is a valuable employee retention strategy.
6. Create an Interesting Workplace Culture
As a strategy for employee retention, you’ll have to create an interesting workplace culture that all your employees want to be part of. For you to excel at this strategy, you’ll have to employ other strategies mentioned on this list.
You could promote a healthy work-life balance, provide perks for efficient work, recognize and reward efforts, and provide feedback, to name a few.
Moreover, you’ll have to cultivate an interesting workplace culture that your employees will want to naturally take part in. As a result, you’ll improve your employees’ productivity and your chances of retaining them.
Read also: Innovative culture in business: Building a path to success
7. Build Employee Engagement and Feedback Systems
One of the best strategies for employee retention is to build a system where you actively engage employees in productive work. This also means you’ll engage them in decision-making where their opinions are needed.
In addition, there has to be a feedback system from both ends: you give them feedback on their work performance, and they give feedback in the form of opinions.
When there is a system like this, every employee will be actively engaged with work, which is great for your company.
Benefits of Implementing Employee Retention Strategies
The ability to retain employees in your organization comes with some benefits. Here is a close look at the top five:
1. Reduces Cost
When companies recruit employees, they spend resources on different types of training to bring them up to speed.
However, these resources could be used for something else within the company when they can retain their employees.
Hence, as a business owner, you will save so much more when you do the best you can to retain valuable talents rather than lose them.
2. Recruitment and Training Efficiency
Imagine going through the process of recruiting and then training employees, only to lose them in a short period of time. This could lead to inefficiency and wasteful training expenses.
As a business owner, retaining your employees through the necessary strategies to maximize post-training potential will be in your best interest.
3. Increased Productivity
One of the benefits of employee retention is increased productivity. In cases of the loss of valuable talents, especially voluntary turnover, the workforce would be weakened.
Additionally, when you lose employees, you’ll have to begin another process of recruitment to bring new employees up to speed.
Moreover, this reduction in the workforce would mean other employees would have to take on more work, which invariably leads to a reduction in productivity. Hence, the higher your employee retention is, the more productive they become.
4. Higher Employee Morale
When your employees know that they are well taken care of and that none of their colleagues are leaving the company so often, they will have a level of confidence. This confidence helps build their morale a great deal.
Moreover, when your employees know that you have an employee retention program, their morale will improve, and when this happens, they’ll give their best to your business.
5. You’ll Get to Keep Experienced Employees
The longer you have employees working in your company, the more experience they gain and the better they become at their job description.
Also, your employees work as a team, and the longer they work together, the better they understand each other.
However, introducing new sets of employees will lead to a reduced number of experienced employees, which will definitely take a toll on your business.
Conclusion
Employee retention is possible for any company that knows what to do and how to go about with the strategies. When you discover why employees leave your company, you can use the above-listed employee retention strategies to resolve them.
Resolving the issues will help you keep your experienced employees; their productivity and morale will increase, and you’ll be able to save on the cost of recruiting and training new ones.
