Finding and securing top talent for your workforce is the first part of building a reliable and effective staff team. Investing in employee retention is essential to a company’s continued success in any market.
Reducing employee turnover rates helps to ensure quality productivity. It also builds a strong company culture and cuts down on recruitment and onboarding costs. Creating an environment that makes your employees want to stay long-term helps to benefit both your company and clients.
In this article we explain what employee retention means and why it matters. We also give you five tried and tested methods for how you can retain employees effectively.
Employee Retention: What Is It, and Why is it Important?
Employee retention typically refers to methods and strategies an organization adopts to keep their employees. It focuses on reducing voluntary turnover rates through morale boosting and providing career opportunities.
Retention becomes especially important during periods of low unemployment or when competition in the market is high. Some common methods of employee retention include providing competitive benefits or fostering a positive work environment. Modern companies also use HR services and technology to improve employees’ work experiences.
Being able to retain the same employees is crucial for a company’s long-term success in any market. A high turnover rate in the workforce negatively impacts morale among the remaining employees. In addition, clients and customers will likely notice the frequency of change.
As many as 47% of companies surveyed in one study said they felt retention to be the biggest challenge they face. For many businesses who focus on growth, it can seem more important to prioritize recruitment. However, forgetting about current employees can quickly make your organization appear at risk, reducing the likelihood of return business.
When a company employs successful employee retention methods, they can expect advantages like…
- greater productivity and less delay in workflow
- reduced recruitment and training costs
- stronger team spirit and company culture
- improved customer relationships
Below, you’ll find some tips for how to quickly and successfully implement efficient employee retention strategies in your company.
The Dangers of a High Turnover Rate
Every time you lose an employee to voluntary resignation, you may be missing on on future opportunities. Each lost employee represents management and training hours, and well as valuable skills.
It’s hard to foresee exactly how each loss will affect your business in the future. However, clients and partners will quickly recognize your business are unreliable if they are always dealing with new staff.
Your remaining workers will also feel less likely to stay if they are unable to form lasting connections with their colleagues. In this way, the turnover rate can quickly snowball, leading to widespread satisfaction.
The Top Five Employee Retention Strategies
Offer Flexible Work Hours and Work-From-Home (WFH) Options
The recent uptick in the work-from-home trend has shown that many employees would rather work from home, as it allows them to reduce travel time, enjoy a greater work-life balance, exercise greater autonomy, and have better and faster work results.
If you are unable to offer remote working arrangements as an option, then giving your employees reduced work hours, or a shortened work week, can also improve their work schedule and allow them the flexibility that they want.
Wellness and Health Care Perks
A healthy employee is a happy employee, and when your employees are feeling refreshed, they are going to have better performances in the workplace.
Some practical ideas for implementing an increased focus on employee health include organizing wellness retreats, improving the company health care plan, providing a meditation room in the office, or changing the snacks available to foster healthy work and diet habits.
Acknowledge and Celebrate Achievements
When an employee feels appreciated not only for their results, but also for their effort, they’re more likely to be motivated to stay with the company and continue to work harder.
Rewarding and encouraging your employees can come in many different forms. It can be monetary, in the form of bonuses or a salary raise, or you can also use can coupons, extra time off, access to gym or fitness memberships, etc.
You will also need to take time to highlight the efforts of remote workers. This means finding ways to boost employee morale without a physical presence, such as gift cards or digital celebrations.
Foster a Culture of Engagement and Feedback
Make sure that your employees feel like they can express their opinions or give input without being reprimanded. Treating your employees like part of the team, and not subordinates, is essential to creating the kind of company culture that makes employees want to remain with you long-term.
Always take employee opinions into consideration when scheduling employees. Otherwise, have a suggestions box or a weekly meeting where employees can contribute their ideas and thoughts towards improving the company.
Training and Growth Opportunities
If an employee sees that they can grow and improve their skills in a company, they are likely going to be more willing to commit to the company’s vision.
So, make sure that you have training courses available for those who want to specialize in their talent. Bring your team to conferences or industry events to show that you invest in their future with the company.
Recruit and Retain Talent Worldwide with INS Global
From remaking a shift schedule, to giving every team member a chance in the spotlight, satisfying and motivating your employees is not easy. You may want to avail yourself of professional and personalized advice from our team of experienced HR counselors. We’ve spent close to two decades guiding companies through overseas expansion with our PEO (Professional Employer Organization) and EOR (Employer of Record) services available in over 80 countries worldwide.
Our team offers the best long-term solutions for recruitment, onboarding, payroll, and HR. This allows you to enter new markets with speed and security. Ensuring you set up your operations as efficiently as possible means lesl chance of talent jumping ship at the first opportunity. Every employee who leaves is a risk of missing out on future chances.
With INS Global as your partner, you can let us take care of every aspect of employee operations while you focus on taking your company to the next level.
Contact us here today to learn more.
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