9 Proven Staff Retention Strategies And How You Can Implement Them
Contents
Staff retention is important and can help save time in the long run. So, if you're looking at ways to retain your staff, continue reading to discover a number of ways to do this.
Introduction
Running a successful business has many vital components, with perhaps one of the most important being staff retention. You know how essential it is to retain excellent staff, but it may be a challenge to know how exactly to do it. There are some great strategies that you can employ in order to keep your best staff members - here are nine of the top strategies for your business.
You want to offer your staff something unique and special to ensure that they have a good reason to stick with you - you want them to get a lot from their time at work. However, you will need to be realistic about the amount that people want to give to their job, and how they can balance that with a great quality of life outside of the office.
People want to work to live, not live to work, so you must give them the chance to do this. How? With competitive pay and benefits. This will encourage employees to stay with your company as they will be able to afford a good
quality of life, and will believe that you value them.
While it can be tempting to pay less or even just match the industry standard, this could lead to a higher staff turnover which will cost you more in the long run. It is a lot more cost effective for your business to retain employees rather than recruit new ones. When recruiting, you need to consider the
expense of the recruitment process, time and money spent onboarding and training - so as you can imagine, you are saving time and money with good employee retention.
When you hire new employees, you need to remember that first impressions do matter. This is perhaps more important than ever when it comes to a new job with a new company, as employees want to feel that they are entering a professional and thoughtful environment where people care about them.
This begins with the onboarding process, which can be the key to an employee’s success and longevity within a company.
Having a thorough onboarding process in place is essential, so take a moment to reflect on yours and put one together if you do not have one. A firm structure that you can stick to is an invaluable way to make new employees feel comfortable, confident and welcome in their new workplace - this can help them to get to work faster and feel more capable right from the beginning of their employment.
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3. Make Employee Successes Known
Celebrating success does not have to break the bank, but it is a wonderful way to create a culture of enthusiasm and praise which could have a serious impact on how
many employees stay with your company. Letting successes be widely known and celebrated helps your employees to feel more appreciated, and encourages them to
continue to do well.
Not only that, but celebrating success can be one of the most cost-effective strategies in your arsenal for improving your company culture and building better staff retention.
Employee retention is not just about celebrating big wins. In order to drive performance and improve retention and employee engagement rates, it is essential to focus on strengths overall. Employee strengths may be something small, such as reliability, but it is better to focus on these great qualities rather than focusing on weakness, which can result in employees feeling less valued.
When you do notice weaknesses or gaps in your employees training, or just wish to provide more development, make sure that you are offering them ways to improve both professionally and personally.
Recognising areas of potential personal development can increase an employee’s sense of value, especially when combined with checking in with them on a more personable level, showing that you care about them as an individual and not just as a member of staff.
Formalising these check-ins can be useful; appraisals where you allow employees to drive the conversation and encouraging them to discuss points of pride rather than areas where they feel lacking can boost their confidence within the company.
5. Be Open To Receiving Feedback From Employees
Remember that you are in a symbiotic relationship with your employees; their feedback can be invaluable in helping your company to grow and change. You do
not want to wait until your best employees have moved on to greener pastures to hear from them in their exit interview.
Encouraging employees to share their thoughts and feelings can help you to identify weaknesses in yourself and your processes so that you can adapt and change these before you lose your best employees. You can more easily discover employee motivations as well as pain points to improve staff retention.
While not all employees will feel comfortable airing their thoughts with you, you can still offer them the opportunity to do this anonymously. Suggestion boxes
that allow anonymous feedback or surveys sent out regularly will allow your employees to keep their anonymity and feel more able to share their honest
thoughts and feelings.
6. Promote A Healthy Work-Life Balance To Your Employees
As an extension of providing competitive pay and benefits, you must also acknowledge that every employee has different needs when it comes to a healthy work-life balance. You should have open discussions with your employees in order to understand their unique needs. This should extend to flexibility when an employee has personal difficulties or challenges or is dealing with complicated family matters.
Regardless of this, you should always encourage your employees to take all of the holiday time that they are entitled to. This will help your employees to recharge and refresh, and come back to work feeling more rested and enthusiastic about their role.
It also reduces the chances of your employees feeling resentful, or as if they are being taken advantage of.
7. Encourage A Strong Team Culture But Remember This Doesn’t Happen Overnight
A strong team culture is a holistic and important way to keep employees on your staff. Ensuring that new team members are properly introduced is an essential first step, but growing a team culture will not happen quickly.
You need to continue working on this, recognising that a team is a growing and changing organism that requires nurturing.
Encourage employees to take advantage of opportunities for them to get to know each other socially rather than just professionally. This can come in the form of team-building activities and company-funded social events at special times of the year.
Designating a team member to be a sort of social face of the team can be a good way of helping employees to feel more comfortable - this person will be available for them to go to if they have any issues or need advice.
8. Make Sure Your Brand Values Are Something Your Employees Can Be Proud Of
You are proud of your business, but making this clear with your brand values can help employees to feel a similar sense of pride. Ensure that your brand values are obvious and are followed through in every element of your business. This helps employees to feel more confident about the company they are representing, and can also help you to boost your recruitment.
When you do need to expand your team, great brand values are very attractive to an increasingly ethically conscious and concerned workforce.
9. Offer Growth Opportunities And Stick To Your Word
Perhaps one of the most important things that you can offer your employees to encourage staff retention is growth within your organisation. If staff do not see any way to progress, they will be more likely to leave their position and find somewhere else.
You should make opportunities to progress and your employees’ path towards these clear and well laid out, with achievable markers of success on their way to levelling up in their roles. Provide training opportunities wherever this need is identified, giving your employees real chances to grow with you - not away from you.
With these strategies, you can keep your employees happy and secure in their roles with you, improving your company culture. If you want to ensure that you find the best employees for your roles, then get in touch with Headway Recruitment to register a vacancy and request a quote. We can support you in finding the perfect fit for your company so you have the best employees growing within your business, giving everyone a great chance of success
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If you have any further questions about staff retention, or need some help recruiting staff that will stay at your business, feel free to get in touch and ask our team! Our friendly team of experts would be more than happy to help you.
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