Growing Your Business: 4 Tips to Improve Employee Retention
Whether you have two or 200 employees, an employee deciding to leave is a stumbling block for your business. The repercussions are felt almost immediately. Finding a replacement and providing the necessary training are costly, as you are expected to spend at least twice the salary of the person who just left. This is more critical when the employee who resigned is one of the top performers in your company. We have rounded up 4 tips to keep your employees happy and improve employee retention. Following these tips, we trust you’ll be able to save your business from the consequences of a high turnover rate.
4 Tips for Better Employee Retention
Company resources are allocated for hiring employees, and since it is part of their investment, losing an employee comes with a price. Enhancing employee retention can be a challenge but it is not impossible to attain.
1. Be Discerning in Hiring
It all starts in choosing the right employees. Having the right skills should not be the sole basis of your HR team in hiring new recruits. Studies have shown that ensuring that workers can blend in with the company culture and the people they are going to work with should also be factored in. Compatibility is crucial to determining whether candidates are a perfect fit for your company. Most of the time, even the most conducive office environment cannot motivate an employee who simply doesn’t want to be there. Numerous surveys have proven that the ability to identify with their company’s culture and values results in more devoted and committed employees.
2. Offer Benefits On Top Of Their Salary
A high salary might not be the only deciding factor when an employee is resolved in finding or moving to another company. Healthcare and insurance coverage have been staples for most employers trying to snag excellent applicants. While these employee perks play a major role in employees’ decision to accept a job offer, they are likely being offered by your competitors as well. That means that you have to step up your game.
The pandemic forced many workers to work from their homes. And now that the world is opening up and workers are being summoned back to the office, not everyone is willing to go back to what used to be the normal work setup. Offering flexibility, not just in hours but also in work location, has now become a freedom that employees consider non-negotiable. The expectation that employers will work hand in hand with the employees in maintaining a work-life balance is now at its highest. When not met, this disappointment might ultimately lead to resignation.
3. Open Avenues For Growth And Development
No employee wants to feel left behind. If you ask employees how they see themselves five years from now, they most certainly can provide a detailed answer. Employees want to grow as their company grows. Providing them with development opportunities raises their level of commitment. When employees learn new skills or experience continuous career development because of their employer’s support, their commitment to the company deepens. Advancing professional development is in fact not only great for employee retention but also for the employers. That’s because they can become certain that they are keeping employees up-to-date, competent, and satisfied. In other words, the dedication to work is heightened when employees know that their employers care for their well-being.
4. Find Out Why Employees Leave
Exit interviews can give you information you never thought you needed. You might think that you know why but until you hear it from the employees themselves, you will never be able to address possible problems and in turn, fail to come up with solutions. Implementing the changes that employees want in your company will certainly contribute to your high retention rate in the future. If you work on them, of course. Every effort must be made in ensuring that if there is indeed a problem with how your workplace operates, you get to the root of it sooner rather than later.
Summary and Insights
Finding and keeping the right employee starts early in the hiring process. Don’t forget to consider an applicant’s compatibility with your organizational culture. Next, remember that employees today want not just health coverage and insurance, but also flexibility in their working arrangements.
Another way to increase employee retention is making sure that you are part of their professional and personal growth. Finally, conducting exit interviews may increase your ability to retain your employees in the long run. Knowing what former employees want to change and working on these changes is another great component of maintaining a high employee retention rate.
No matter why or how employees leave, what is paramount is how companies can prevent this from happening in the future, and if inevitable, how to minimize its occurrence at all cost.
Written by Kat Sarmiento
Kat writes articles with the hopes of reaching out to more people. Her writing is focused on lifestyle, science, and smart hacks, that will definitely (well, hopefully) be useful to her readers.