Hiring good employees is just the start when it comes to building a strong company. Next, you’ll have to work hard at keeping them. High employee turnover costs organizations thousands of dollars each year.
That said, whenever someone walks out the door, people notice. Some employees might even start to wonder what happened and if they should start looking for another job too. That’s why maintaining a high employee retention rate and employee job satisfaction is important. In fact, these two factors should be a company’s number one priority.
In order to be successful in this area, however, companies need to think outside the box and address things from a team member’s point of view. Remember, all employees are different, and each one has a unique desire and goal they set for themselves. It’s safe to say that most employers assume the majority of people just want healthcare benefits and good pay. While this is true, employees also want to feel appreciated and treated fairly. They shouldn’t feel overworked or taken advantage of. Instead, they want to be challenged and excited about the work they’re given.
Improving Employee Retention
Improve Communication and Be Open to Feedback: Creating an environment where everyone on your team feels comfortable about sharing their thoughts and suggestions is key when it comes to retaining employees. One-way supervisors can ensure that employees are well-informed and know what’s going on with the company is by scheduling or conducting meetings periodically. These meetings should be designed to let individuals know what changes are to come and allow them to make sense of any new policies being introduced.
With that in mind, it’s important for organizations to establish well-defined, reasonable goals for their company and share them with all employees. That way, they can have a better understanding of the goals they’re working towards and help the company achieve them. Companies should also describe their expectations of each team member so they know what responsibilities to expect and know how to achieve career growth. By emphasizing communication within the work environment, employees can feel important and inspire everyone to work towards a common goal.
If you conduct one-on-one meetings or performance evaluations with co-workers, find out what makes them happy when they’re at work and how they feel about the company. You can ask them simple things like what they like or dislike about you or your management techniques. Make sure you take notes and acknowledge their concerns. Use the feedback you receive from employees to improve your work environment, and you will make your employees happy by implementing the changes they suggested. Remember, when employees are happy, they’re much less likely to quit their jobs.
Be Flexible: If you have a small business, then you can compensate for your employees by offering flexible work options. This might include telecommuting or what’s called “flex-time,” which involves working outside the office remotely. Telecommuting offers co-workers additional benefits outside the office such as less time in traffic commuting and an improved work-life balance. People who have the opportunity to work remotely can eliminate costs (such as transportation costs) associated with working as an employee of an organization.
Flexibility also allows employees to find areas that they’re most productive in. So, if an employee doesn’t work well in a traditional office environment, then they can go to their favorite coffee shop or work from home to be more productive in the long run. That’s the true benefit of flexible work.
Search for an HR Professional: When it comes to hiring employees, a small business might be at a disadvantage if they don’t have the right human resource staff to recruit qualified employees. Companies can boost employee retention by making sure they hire a professional HR manager who can give employees compensation benefits and develop additional ways to keep employees with the company longer.
What can an HR professional do?
For starters, an HR specialist can create and oversee the company’s internal growth and structure to make sure the changes being made comply with legal requirements. They can also keep the company in line with hiring trends and implement company policies along with their own HR tactics that company owners might not think about if they were doing these things alone.
Small businesses often lose when they try and compete for qualified employees who carry a specific set of skills for the job. In most cases, organizations will offer an endless amount of benefits in order to increase their recruitment. The only problem is that these same methods can actually backfire and destroy profitability and stunt company growth. Fortunately, by offering personalized benefit packages while controlling costs, HR recruiters, along with business owners, can create a low-stress and engaging workplace. In the long run, there are actually a lot of things you can do to help improve employee retention. By creating a plan that focuses on workplace culture and making employees feel appreciated, poor employee retention may never be an issue for you.
Thanks for the read! Did I miss anything? What are some other ways companies can help improve employee retention and let their employees that they’re valued? Leave a comment below.
This topic is a priority for companies and the numerous proposals found in literature are very interesting.
Part of the problem, in my opinion, arises from the fact that employers tend to present a picture of their organization as a stimulating and exciting place. But if the reality is different, the talents will soon take the door. We must instead start from an accurate description already in the recruiting phase on what we expect, the business objectives, the challenges and the opportunities to be expected. For example, you should avoid leverage on the importance of collaboration if the managers of the company are used to working in watertight and often conflicting compartments. Or underline the opportunities for growth and training if these are not present. People will be more inclined to become attached to the company if the picture presented to it coincides with reality.