Businesses are only as good as the people who work in them. When your team is properly motivated and engaged, it is only natural for them to get more done with fewer resources. Unlike physical assets, your employees have minds of their own and if they don’t feel like they are treated fairly, or valued for the work they do, they will simply leave. This employee retention guide will teach you everything you need to know.
What Is Employee Retention?
Retaining employees means you are keeping valuable human assets which in turn means a more productive workplace. A good employee retention program can help an institution avoid costly turnover while maintaining a positive environment and good employee relations.
Managers have to be mindful of employee morale; set effective goals; give regular feedback; track performance systematically; and implement processes that reward outstanding results. Ultimately, satisfied and well-engaged employees are an integral part of a successful organization.
Why Employees Leave Organisations
It’s easy to see that good employees can leave a business and move on, but what’s not so easy is understanding the reasons why. What kinds of situations can cause an employee to look elsewhere or move on? For instance, when said employee feels like they have received no special consideration in their hour of need even though they have been serving your institution dedicatedly. In these times you should reevaluate your workplace values so that employees are aware of where they stand.
Reasons that can’t be controlled
- Retirement
- Career change
- Change in family structure (marriage, pregnancy, etc)
- Family care
Reasons for employee turnover
- Poor compensation
- Lack of recognition
- No work-life balance
- Change in organization direction/ vision
- Not a cultural fit
- Poor management
- No advancement in their role
Why Is Employee Retention Important?
It’s easy to misjudge just how costly staff turnover can prove to be. It comes with a host of problems, and businesses often struggle to understand the extent of it when people are constantly leaving.
Recruitment and training
Small businesses often view employee turnover as the biggest drain on their bottom line. It’s easy to see why— it costs so much money to find a qualified replacement that if you do not have high retention rates throughout your organization, you will feel the pinch.
The cheapest way to help ensure that employees stick around is by ensuring they are happy with their working conditions, salaries, and career advancement opportunities. Make sure your employees know how much you value them and how committed you are to making sure they remain happy working for you!
Higher productivity
Positive employee retention programs have been shown to increase employees’ engagement in the overall productivity of their organisation. Not only does this improve the workplace on all fronts, but it also promotes a higher-quality output. Job training is key for these types of initiatives to encourage a quick and seamless transition from one employee role to another.
Conversely, companies with high turnover rates tend to see declines in the quality & quantity of their output because they’ve been unable to maintain consistent or competitive levels of engagement between each worker who’s brought on board.
Better customer experience
If you have a team of highly skilled, experienced employees who build strong customer relationships, who can deal skillfully and calmly with their customers even during tough phases then they will help make your organization more successful. Making your customers happy is always a good idea because it not only builds loyalty and trust but also contributes to improving your brand.
Employee Retention Best Practices
As an employer or management of an institution, you have to realize that employee growth is an important factor in maintaining a successful organisation. Freeing up your team from unnecessary stress can greatly improve morale and increase dedication to their jobs. This helps you retain them for longer periods.
Understand why employees leave
A good strategy to create is to focus on the reasons why talented staff members leave your organisation and analyze appropriate strategies for dealing with them. You should address these issues because without fixing them, you will end up spending more money, time and resources for recruiting new employees.
Provide development opportunities
Invest in your staff’s success by offering training courses and seminars on various topics related to their day-to-day work activities so that they feel like what they’re doing has importance.
Also, consider setting up a well-graded system for training or formalizing the position with training to further their knowledge because almost every employee will appreciate having sufficient information about the services they provide. Showing employees that you care about them goes a long way when it comes down to retention.
Rewards and recognition
Recognising the efforts of your employees is extremely important, and being able to reward them for a job well done in a way that’s recognised internally and externally is an excellent way of making this happen. Money doesn’t necessarily have to be involved. Whether it’s time off, public or private praise, or even extending the actual job role and title into something more meaningful will do wonders in advertising how much they mean to your business.
You can achieve organisational success by streamlining your recruitment process and hiring top talent. Simply reach out to us here.
