In today’s fast-paced business landscape, hiring and retaining employees has become more challenging than ever. Recruiters need to focus on numerous strategies for employee retention to build a strong and cohesive workforce.
One of the red flags for companies is employee disengagement, meaning they might be leaving you at some time. Similarly, there can be several other reasons for an employee to walk out of a company.
This article shares the importance of employee retention and explores 10 effective staff retention strategies.
What is an Employee Retention Programme?
Research says the cost of losing an employee in an organisation is 33% of their annual salary, which is huge. Hiring new talents is not just sufficient today; businesses must focus on reducing their employee turnover rate. It is when implementing employee retention policies in business can be fruitful.
Employee retention programme refers to the strategies used by a company to prevent employee turnover. In short, it restricts losing of employees in a certain period, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
Employee retention rate = ((Total no. of employees – Total no. of employees left) / Total no. of employees) × 100
You can use numerous strategies for employee retention to hold back your existing staff and the best employees in the organisation. However, a low turnover rate in your company can be healthy depending on your industry, but higher rates can be expensive in terms of money and time.
Importance of Implementing Strategies for Employee Retention
Before you look for how to retain your best employees, let us understand why you need to do that.
Many people think that it is easier to hire new talents. No! It is costly and brings numerous disadvantages that can harm your company’s productivity. For example, you will lack the expertise your previous employees can offer, leading to low productivity. Additionally, hiring new talents can cost you one-half to two times your departing employee’s annual salary.
Listed below are a few benefits of investing in different strategies for employee retention.
Sustained Productivity Flow
Your existing employee base understands the company’s vision at a deep level and knows how to fulfil their role’s expectations. Additionally, they have acquired all the necessary skills to complete tasks regularly, thus, increasing their productivity effectively.
Reduced Company Expenses
By retaining your existing employees, you save on making costly mistakes and damaging customer trust. Additionally, you don’t need to spend time and money scouting, recruiting and onboarding new employees and training them to meet your expectations.
Lower Training Time
Your present employees who have worked for a long time have acquired all the necessary talents to fulfil daily duties. You need to invest only in sharpening their skills for trending needs. But new employees require more training and time to adapt to the new workforce environment and its requirements.
Better Customer Experience
Your experienced employees know business processes better and are less prone to making mistakes while handling customers. They are skilled enough to satisfy customers and create long-lasting bonds with them.
This brings us to the end of the benefits of adopting strategies for employee retention.
10 Strategies for Employee Retention that Businesses Must Know
After knowing the importance of employee retention, you must learn how to implement the strategies for employee retention in your organisation.
We have curated the top 10 strategies for employee retention for your help.
Invest in Employees’ Career Growth
More than 94% of employees stay in a company that invests in career growth and development.
Businesses willing to survive today’s competition must keep employees updated with current industry trends. However, searching for new employees every time a trend appears can be difficult. Therefore, you must invest in different career development programs for your existing staff.
It includes introducing mentorship programs, training campaigns, and purchasing online employee classes.
Investing in employees’ career growth makes them feel valued and respected. This, in turn, improves their engagement with the company for longer periods.
Recognise Employees’ Contribution
Employee appreciation in the workplace ranks on top of significant employee retention factors. Everyone likes to be valued and recognised for what they did for the company.
You must recognise your team’s contributions and reward them appropriately to motivate all employees to better output.
Compensation and Benefits
Recognition is, on the one hand, whereas compensating employees properly, on the other, influences employee retention. Most individuals look outside their present company to compare benefits and compensation for their work. You must regularly assess industry compensation standards to reward top performers financially.
Ensure an Exceptional Onboarding Experience
Your talent retention plan must include creating an exceptional onboarding experience. It helps new employees learn about their responsibilities, understand the work culture, and feel accepted. You must introduce them to all team members and provide a mentor for guidance.
Pay Attention to Communication
Communication plays an essential role in any relationship and helps create strong bonds. Similarly, in business, you must invest in two-way communication where employees can speak up for themselves. Additionally, it allows teams to work collaboratively and ensure the smooth running of your business. Companies investing time in developing communication skills can help resolve or prevent issues that lead to low retention and high turnover.
Ask for Feedback
Asking for employee feedback is a great way to understand how things are going in your organisation and one of the best strategies for employee retention.
It gives you a clear idea of what your employees are not liking and where you can improve. Additionally, you must implement their suggestions whenever needed. Employees feel happy to know the company values their decisions and motivates them to work harder.
Prioritise Employee Well-Being
Most employees today look for a perfect work-life balance; if you can offer them that, they stay. No one prefers a toxic work culture, with hefty workloads and impossible deadlines to meet at any cost.
Managers need to supervise if the workload on employees is bearable regularly. You can improve business productivity by prioritising employees’ mental, physical, social, financial and career well-being.
Prioritise Hybrid and Remote Working Options
More employees are interested in flexible working arrangements, including remote and hybrid working facilities. It saves their time and money to commute, ensures fewer distractions, and better work-life balance. All these contributed to higher retention rates and reduced absenteeism and employee disengagement.
Promote Collaboration and Teamwork
If you are looking for ways to improve employee retention and motivation, and create a healthy work environment, promote collaboration and teamwork.
Teamwork increases business productivity and helps you shape valuable workplace relationships. However, with remote workers, you can set collaborative goals, leverage regular video chats and create communication channels to promote teamwork.
This collaboration ensures employees deliver the best results and stay connected with the company for a long.
Work on DE&I (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)
Every workplace must prioritise diversity, equity and inclusion to prevent losing employees due to office politics and biases. You must encourage communication around DE&I with your employees to influence them to follow the rules and eliminate discrimination.
It improves employee well-being and results in innovative business outcomes. Employees who feel valued, seen and included take the initiative to stay in your company. This is one of the major strategies for employee retention and must be adopted.
How Does 6 Pence Help Implement Strategies for Employee Retention?
We have listed the top ten strategies for employee retention in companies that you must try and get surprising results. Retaining your employees is essential for improved business productivity, customer satisfaction, revenue growth, and boosting brand awareness.
However, if you are worried about hiring top talents, contact 6 Pence! We offer top staffing services to GCC companies in Oman, Iraq, Bahrain and Dubai and bridge the gap between business associates and top talents.
We extend our support beyond the recruitment phase and help with payroll processing, onboarding, HR assistance, etc. A seamless wage disbursal, leave and tax filing add to a fulfilling working experience, leading to better employee retention.
Contact us to know more!
Also Read : 7 Employee Engagement Strategies for HRs
Frequently Asked Questions
What is employee retention?
Employee retention refers to an organisation’s ability to retain or hold back its employees for a certain period.
What are the methods for employee retention programmes?
Compensating employees, rewarding them, creating an inclusive workplace, offering training and development programs, maintaining work-life balance, and giving flexibility in work are a few methods for employee retention programmes.
What are the ways to measure retention?
You can measure employee retention by taking the average number of employees minus the number of employees who left and dividing the whole by the average number of employees.
