Remote work is here to stay. And employees will soon face a re-opening of the country, with ample choice about where and the way to figure. What does that mean for the resiliency of businesses defining a new normal for workforce management?
Companies and organizations put an excellent amount of their time, effort, and investment into hiring the simplest employees possible. And while hiring top talent is great, some say it’s even better when such organizations invest in developing and retaining their current employees.
Highly talented and sought-after workers know they’re in demand. If they receive an excellent offer, what’s holding them back?
With such an outsized investment going into these sorts of employees (insurance, benefits, etc.), losing them to a different offer hurts the organization, and you’ll need to start the method of looking for great talent all over again.
So, how do you fix it?
If you’re a human resource or business leader, here are a few innovative employee retention strategies designed to retain employees:
- Teach your recruiters and managers how to deal with unconscious bias.
- Comb through your executive team: are they acting on values of respect and diversity?
- A large number of employee turnover is due to bad hiring decisions. One should try to go beyond the textbook interview questions and think out of the box.
- Ask questions that are related to your company values. Explain how the role correlates with the values. It will help them to get an idea about what is expected of them.
- These initiatives could be an excellent internal asset that our team could read via email and being more considerate of to build on our team’s atmosphere.
- Unconscious bias is always something people will become complacent about when the day becomes busy or work takes over life… This is a slippery slope for many to be consumed by.
- Our executive team and managers will always find value in how to better lead the group and find ways to inspire.
- Turnover obviously sucks but this may prove wise to have an email trigger our eyes to red flags that go under the table in hiring.
Understanding Employee Retention
In simple words, employee retention is the effort taken by an organization to hold on to its most prized asset – the employees! Moreover, a low or high employee retention rate directly impacts the company’s overall business.
It is also essential to know and manage your company’s employee turnover rate if you want to stay in business for the long haul.
Consequently, to manage and avoid high turnover, retaining key employees becomes a crucial element.
So, what are the main drivers of employee retention?
Deciding to leave a job is difficult enough for almost everyone. It takes a lot of thinking and mapping out of every possibility before taking this big step.
The reasons why employees quit their jobs are often both professional and personal. As for personal reasons, the employee can choose to disclose it or keep it confidential.
Here are some of the critical drivers of employee retention that make your employees stay:
- Cultivate a Healthy Environment
- Initiate a Mentor Program
- Increase Employee Engagement
- Balance Their Workload
- Reward and Recognize
- Appreciate Good Work
- Provide Benefits
- Practice Giving & Receiving Feedback
- Conduct Exit Interviews
- Train Your Employees
- Provide Leadership Opportunities
- Keep An Eye on The Company’s Managers
- Stick to The Company’s Vision & Goals
- Understand Your Employee’s Motivation
- Competitive Salary & Benefits
- Hire the right person
- Encourage Open Communication
- Earn The Trust of Your Employees
- Foster Respect in The Workplace
- Give a Clear Understanding of The Corporate Ladder
Let’s discuss a few of the Innovative Employee Retention Strategies.
Employee Engagement/Retention Best Practices
1. Hiring for cultural fit and Creating a Culture Respect
People can develop skills and expertise. But hiring someone keeping your cultural values in mind will result in more loyal and engaged employees. New hires can blend in with the team quicker. They feel comfortable and can contribute faster.
In the grand scheme of things, people love to be respected for the input they make and the ideas they propose. So, good culture of respect includes a good level of dialogue and openness.
Organizations that are great at employee engagement are employee-centric cultures.
Below are a few initiative ideas:
- Teach your recruiters and managers how to deal with unconscious bias.
- Comb through your executive team: are they acting on values of respect and diversity?
- A large number of employee turnover is due to bad hiring decisions. One should try to go beyond the textbook interview questions and think out of the box.
- Ask questions that are related to your company values. Explain how the role correlates with the values. It will help them to get an idea about what is expected of them.
Courtesy/Credit-Forbes
2. Be Clear About How Your Employees Fit in the Big Picture
First off, high-performing workers are those that clearly understand their role. Being just a cog in the machine is unlikely to engage anyone.
Next, if you want your staff involved in achieving organizational goals, they need to know what those goals are. Letting them know how their role plays out is paramount.
Providing a clear vision from the top down is the most effective way to increase engagement organization-wide.
Hold regular meetings to help the team stay on top and discuss how each member contributes.
3. Shaping their Growth and Development
Helping employees achieve their short-term and long-term goals is one of the most crucial employee retention strategies. It shows that you are invested in their future just as they are. Most millennials and Gen-Z workers will choose a job with lower pay if they see development opportunities.
Therefore, designing in-house training programs for employees can advance their professional development. Other methods include encouraging them to attend conferences, industry events, etc. can level up your employee retention strategies.
Ideally skill development training is where you should look for long-term organizational benefits. Upskilling your employees has proven benefits like improving retention and keeping your team motivated.
Communicate as often as possible. Ask them what are the virtual work challenges they are facing. Let them know what’s on your mind as well so that they feel they are not alone in this.
This will increase their loyalty and trust in your leadership and company.
4. Developing Orientation Programs
Good managers always keep their employees informed. They clearly explain the policies, expectations of the employee from the beginning. Furthermore, orientation programs help employees to understand how they can contribute and transcend.
5. Maintaining Work-Life Balance – Balancing Workload
Stress is a normal response to a threat, however, constantly feeling stressed is not good for anyone. Also, make sure that your employees have a reasonable workload and can balance their personal lives with it. If employees are always stressed they may start feeling detached and unsatisfied with their work thereby reducing their productivity and creativity even further.
Be mindful of the tasks that employees have to be able to help them be productive.
To take pressure off employees, share the workload, allow work from home, and practice flex-time.
6. Revamp your Compensation, Perks & Benefits
One of the major reasons that make employees quit is the lack of compensation. To avoid this, you can give fair and just appraisals to every deserving candidate. A salary hike is another way to retain top performers. Your workforce would be demotivated if they do not receive the proper benefits. Thus, leaders should build a competitive benefits package such as:
- Salary hikes
- Incentives
- Bonus
- Health benefits
7. Rewarding & Recognizing Employees
Sometimes, your employees expect more than a thank you or a pat on the back. When they fulfil their goals, rewarding them to congratulate their efforts is important. Some of the ways to reward your employees and employee recognition are corporate gifts, point-based reward systems, performance awards, etc.
Putting efforts into creating reward and recognition programs is a great way to fire up your team.
- Put your managerial hires through Employee Recognition Training.
- Set up an employee Service Awards Program.
- Create a Peer-to-Peer Recognition Program.
8. Celebrate Employee Anniversary
Recognition of service is an excellent way to accredit and reward your long-term employees for their years of service. It is a great addition to your company culture aiding to create meaningful employee experiences. Employee experience results in more employee engagement which ultimately affects employee retention.
9. Diversity and Inclusion
The pandemic stirred up a hornet’s nest against the Asian community and people of color all around the world. Thus, you need to emphasize on building a more diverse and inclusive workplace culture more than ever.
Small changes like removing gender coded signs or having a multi-faith prayer room for religious observance is a solid way to improve your employee retention policy.
10. Keep the Leaders, Not the Bosses
The dynamic perspective of people about leading roles is quite fascinating. Everyone wants to be a boss, but very few can become a leader. What they don’t realize is that people like to work under leaders’ rules and avoid bosses at all costs. To detect who’ going to work as a true leader in your organization, check these facts:
- True leaders share the company vision with employees, bosses don’t. Keeping employees in the dark about coming results is what “bosses” are good at.
- Leaders know how to handle a challenge. Bosses just throw the offloading stress on their employees.
- Leaders desire the best quality of work. They offer good service and experience for both the employees and customers. Bosses, on the other hand, reach the minimum and call it a day.
- People are the most important element to the leaders; employees are like an asset to them. Bosses focus on numbers and don’t worry about hurting people to reach them.
Final Thoughts on How to Improve Employee Retention Rates
If 2020 has shown anything, it is that flexible working is possible. If your employee requests a day to work from home, or expresses that their commute makes them tired, listen to them.
When they are working from home, make sure they aren’t working outside of working hours and make sure they aren’t feeling the need to ‘validate’ how much work they are doing.
2020 has been a tough year for both employees and employers. Employers had to let go of their valuable employees and many of us lost our jobs. With the increase of remote jobs, attracting the right talent has become more difficult than ever. People now have the option to work anywhere from the comfort of their homes.
As the job market is picking up its momentum, keep an eye on the latest market standards and best practices. For instance, a lot of companies have provided their employees with complete work from home set up.
Re-evaluate your employee retention strategies periodically. Take regular feedback and suggestions from your employees. That is how you have happy employees who look forward to coming to work every day!
Laying out a clear path for your initiatives is the best way to ensure their success.
Sometime as HR professionals, we feel flabbergasted by how much we have to do, and it’s a rather arduous task to know how to start. Hence, at the outset of it, choosing the right Recruitment firm is prudent.
At destinationone, we will enable your hiring and staffing policies to align with the current values in our society. Read more about us and talk to us now!
If you are looking for lucrative career opportunities, click here and apply for jobs!
