Top Employee Retention Strategies of the Year

Considering the current situation the whole world is put into, unemployment is close to record high levels. These are some really bad news for both the employees and employers. Unfortunately, more and more people are losing jobs and entering this vicious cycle of unemployment and sending their CVs and going to interviews and so on and so on.

While this creates a lot of hassle and stress of the employment market for employees, it also put a lot of stress on the recruitment process and starts to feel overwhelming for employers too. In these uncertain times, nowadays employers find themselves more and more in rough waters, trying to hang onto a steady workforce. And even without the current pandemic situations, statistics show that things do not look that ok for employers even in normal circumstances. Statistics show that millions of people in the country are quitting their jobs is search of better offers every year, while around thirty percent quit before they even manage to make the half-year mark.

However, it turns out that this type of turnover costs a lot for the employers. In some cases and industries it is estimated that is can cost more than double the employee’s salary to replace them when they quit the job. It sounds pretty scary but this is just the tip of the iceberg. What happens when you consider the employees with crucial skills that are already too hard to find on the employment market. More often than not, your business rely on such employees who have mission-critical skills so even the thought of leaving them is terrifying.

So, how you are supposed to win this retention battle and don’t lose valuable and precious employees? Here are some efficient retention strategies to help you keep your great employees.

Competitive Salary and Benefits

Of course, one of the best ways to make sure a valuable employee will continue working for your business is by making sure they are happy and feel appreciated so they don’t feel the need to look for another and better option. This means that you need to provide your employees with a competitive salary and benefits according to the industry and the results and goal they achieve professionally. This will definitely motivate them stick with you and be loyal. Of course, money and benefits are not everything and sometimes even with the highest possible salary in the industry, some employees will still feel the need to change something and look for another workplace or career. However, recent studies show that for almost half of the employees who quit, the main reason is they are not happy with their salary and they don’t feel appreciated or financially motivated to stick with the company.

It turns out that benefits that are actually beneficial to employees, like health care and insurance, matter a lot too. Naturally, ensuring employee retention in the company can easily fixed by providing your employees with a competitive salary for the industry and additional benefits. However, doing only that and hoping you have guaranteed flawless employee retention so there is nothing more to worry about is simply not the most effective strategy and there are a lot more things you can consider and improve for your employees than just costly rises and benefits.

Hire the Right People at the Start

Recent studies also show that a big percentage of the people doing the hiring of new employees do that with the expectation and envisioning that over one-third of their hires will walk out the door in a year, which is pretty disheartening to know. If you hire someone who is willing to quit easily without a battle or negotiations, do not be surprised they will eventually quit soon or later. Whenever you are hiring new employees and you want to ensure high employee retention in the company, make sure you are hiring the best fits for the position and the company too.

One great way to ensure you are hiring the right people is being honest in the beginning and providing extensive information about the company and the job during the hiring process. This way you can make sure that only people who are truly interested in the opportunity stick around and there is the lowered risk of them quitting too soon after starting to work for the company. So don’t sugar-coat during the hiring process and ensure maximum honesty, be clear about what you are really expecting and what the potential employee can expect from the job and the company.

Ensure Employee Engagement

According to recent studies, a terrifying percent of the people who are currently working are also actively looking for another job opportunities. This means they are not happy with something at their current job and it is your responsibility to find the core of the problem and offer a solution, if possible. A big part of the employees, no matter the industry, feel disengaged. And you don’t need to blame your employees for feeling that way, because disengagement is associated with distraction and distraction is usually a result of the employees not feeling motivated enough. As the employer and the leader of all these employees, it is your job to find out that motivates them and what can make them be fully engaged with their work. If you refuse to do so, you can be sure you will soon struggle with the problem of mass quitting at your company. So how you can help your employees feel more motivated and stick around, continuing to be part of the company?

First things first, make sure you offer your employees valuable learning opportunities and you help them develop and improve their skills. It is considered that employees who are highly engaged in learning are also highly engaged at work. However, please keep in mind that these learning opportunities we are talking about are something different from the on-the-job training. While the letter one is necessary so your employees can do the job you require them to do, the first one is actually your gesture of helping your employees to actually grow, expand, and get better in general, not simply to get better at what they already do.

So the training or the learning process should not be centered only around increasing performance in a current role as this won’t motivate the employees. Therefore, you are recommended to consider a cross-training program to broaden the skill set of the employees, mentorship programs for encouraging mentee to become a mentor, also creating a leadership hierarchy so the employees have something to look up and they know what they need to do in order to move up and develop.

You also need to make advancement, some sort of professional development, or promotion possible because this will mean your employees can now set goals and start working towards making these goals come true. A goal to look up to will definitely keep the employees feel more motivated than a dead end they may see for the foreseeable future.