Strategies for Effective Employee Retention That Can Make a Difference
Turnover is not unavoidable. It is the result of decisions made by your employees after weighing the opportunities presented to them in your organization versus those available elsewhere. Modern employee retention strategies assist in closing that gap before they leave.
The Great Resignation crafted this more urgent for many employers. But it’s crucial to remember that the high rate of turnover many employers experienced during that time period wasn’t solely due to a pandemic.
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Employee retention vs. employee turnover
While the terms employee retention and employee turnover are frequently used interchangeably, they are not synonymous. The percentage of employees who stay over a given period is calculated as retention, whereas turnover measures the rate of employees who leave over time.
Organizationally, attempts to boost employee retention are typically proactive, whereas efforts to reduce employee turnover are frequently reactive.
What components influence turnover?
Employees leave companies for a variety of reasons, such as layoffs, retirement, or better opportunities elsewhere. Many instances of voluntary turnover, however, are a result of perceived employer deficiencies. These could be anything from inadequate compensation or benefits to ineffective management, a poor workplace culture, and/or a lack of career development opportunities.
And, while voluntary turnover includes employees who radically alter their career path or leave for an incredible opportunity that their current employer cannot match, many resign simply because they want to do something different. According to the Betterworks 2022 State of Performance Enablement Research Report, 72% of departing employees leave companies predominantly to get away from their previous job rather than because they are excited about the new opportunity.
Strategies for Effective Employee Retention That Can Make a Difference
If you want to buck the trend of the Great Resignation at your company, you’ll need to tailor your strategy to your employees’ specific wants and needs. Consider using these nine effective employee retention strategies to motivate your own retention efforts.
Provide a well-structured onboarding process
The onboarding process establishes the tone for an employee’s relationship with the company.
HR can provide a comprehensive, user-friendly onboarding packet before an employee’s first day. This will allow onboarding to begin before the employee’s first day. Employees can often complete paperwork and set up company equipment ahead of time, enabling them to spend their first day learning more about the job and your organization’s expectations.
Setting clear performance management expectations and professional development goals during onboarding is also an opportunity to engage new hires. By demonstrating to new talent what they must do to succeed — and how HR and managers will assist them—they will begin to see how they can achieve their professional goals within your organization.
Encourage mentorship programs
Assigning a mentor is one way to invest in employees and help them advance in their careers. While mentoring is frequently informal, HR leaders can create formal mentoring programs within business units or across the enterprise.
The first step is to define your mentoring program’s goals and purpose. Why would mentors and mentees participate in your program? What are the business benefits of mentoring? What will happen when mentors and mentees are matched, and what should they do next?
You’ll need buy-in from the leadership team once you’ve established the goals and structure of your program. Communicate the advantages of such programs, not only to mentees but also to the organization. Offer a pilot program to demonstrate the value and persuade skeptics.
As the program begins, ensure that mentors and mentees understand what is expected of them, what mentorship entails, and where the boundaries are. Encourage mentees to come into the relationship with specific goals that their mentor can help them achieve.
While mentoring cannot always be quantified, HR leaders can track progress and receive regular feedback from both parties on how things are going.
Get recognition right
Employees appreciate being acknowledged for a job well done. Employee recognition programs accomplish this in a formal, standardized manner. Recognition can be informal, such as praise in a meeting or a manager check-in, or formal, such as recognizing a performance milestone or a successful team project.
Employee recognition and retention are inextricably linked. Employees who are recognized feel more connected to their coworkers. They have a place in their organization, and that their boss is concerned about their well-being. Employees who feel seen are less likely to suffer from burnout or seek new opportunities.
Employee recognition programs should be well-funded, attuned to organizational goals, commensurate with employees’ accomplishments, and timely. Employees should understand how recognition relates to company values and see that alignment in the actions of leaders. Employees will lose trust if antithetical actions are rewarded.
Establish clear communication frameworks
Communication clarity is more important than ever, especially when people are working in different locations and communicating across devices and platforms.
Poor leadership communication is another factor that contributes to burnout and turnover. Communication encompasses both how people interact with one another and the processes that your organization implements. A decision tree can assist teams in determining how and where to communicate based on the situation, their job role, and who else needs to be aware of the issue.
Human resource leaders can assist their organization in determining the specific communication strategies, policies, and technologies that are best suited to their workflows and cultures.
Managers today frequently juggle their own workloads while being expected to coach employees, guide their career goals, and provide constructive feedback. They cannot achieve all of those objectives without their own training and development.
In essence, if you want to improve retention, you need better managers. HR can assist managers by teaching them how to improve their communication skills and lead with empathy.
HR-designed management training programs can help to cement your company’s expectations of managers. To get the most out of these high-level programs, combine them with personal training plans for each manager.
Implement work-from-home opportunities
Employees yearn for flexibility. Employees can achieve the work-life integration they require without leaving their current job by utilizing hybrid, remote, and flexible work arrangements. Returning to the workplace from fully remote work has increased the stress of 57% of hybrid workers.
Flexible work can come in many forms while maintaining the deliverables, deadlines, and customer service that your company is accustomed to. Even if your industry does not traditionally provide flexible work options, it is possible to implement them. However, flexible policies should not be implemented haphazardly. HR leaders play a critical role in understanding what managers and employees require, balancing that with the demands of the business, and developing policies that provide guardrails and guidance. If your company is just getting started with flexible work, conduct a trial run before making any final decisions.
Encourage individuality and creativity
Experts are your most talented employees. Encourage their curiosity and exploration, particularly in terms of how they can improve their jobs and add more value. When employees believe their contributions are valued and that they can advance within the organization, you will have a much better chance of retaining them.
Creativity can be motivated in informal or formal ways, such as Google’s 20% time, in which employees dedicate hours to pursuing worthwhile projects that may not have an immediate payoff.
Create a workplace environment that employees want to be a part of
A positive workplace culture values employees’ contributions, points of view, and well-being. HR leaders can foster this culture at all levels of the organization by promoting respect, trust, and empathy through policies, practices, and actions.
A positive workplace environment begins with company leadership. Executives are culture stewards, and people follow their lead. When developing culture-focused policies, HR leaders must keep them in mind. Leadership buy-in is critical to the success of any major initiative.
Every day, employees and managers shape and live your culture. Make sure you get regular feedback on how employees feel about the culture and how that compares to leadership perceptions. If there is a gap between what employees are experiencing and what leaders perceive. You may have an engagement and trust issue that will lead to future retention issues. Make a commitment to acting on feedback and explaining your decisions.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives also make a significant contribution to the workplace environment and employee retention by fostering a sense of belonging for employees, particularly those who may feel marginalized or unheard otherwise. People stay where they feel wanted, and the culture of your workplace can either help them stay or help them leave.
Invest in the careers of your employees
Career planning and guidance show that your company is concerned about what’s next for each employee and wants to assist them in moving forward. Career planning also assists human resource leaders and managers in providing better training and training opportunities for the entire workforce.
The first step is to get your employees on board with your company’s strategy and goals. Employees who understand their responsibilities and how they contribute to the company’s success are more likely to be loyal to the company. Employees are less likely to look elsewhere when they see a path forward in their careers, whether through a promotion or another opportunity.
Career planning reflects an employee’s professional goals—the complete picture of what they want to achieve in their career. Career development is more focused, on providing guidance for growth and tracking progress for employees within a specific organization. Meanwhile, employee development plans emphasize the proactive acquisition of new skills and competencies based on people’s career goals in order to prepare workers for advancement or lateral movement within the organization.
These approaches can help to retain employees by giving people a reason to work and a realistic goal to strive for.
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Advantages of an effective retention strategy
A successful employee retention strategy results in a more stable, experienced, and knowledgeable workforce, which has a ripple effect throughout the organization.
Decrease in turnover
An employee retention strategy’s primary goal is to reduce employee turnover. Voluntary quits have been a problem for employers in the United States since before the pandemic, and the quit rate is expected to remain high until late 2022.
With lower turnover, you won’t have to backfill as many roles or ask your remaining employees to do as much work.
Reduce the cost of hire
Hiring and onboarding new employees is costly, especially in a tight labor market. Higher employee retention results in fewer job openings and lower costs for temporary workers. It also translates to increased productivity and allows your company to avoid losing business opportunities due to a lack of personnel. Payroll costs may be reduced as well because your company isn’t competing for top performers on the open market, where highly qualified applicants have more bargaining power to negotiate their compensation and benefits.
Preserve institutional knowledge
When experienced employees depart, they take their skills and institutional knowledge with them. When knowledge is not documented or passed on, it can lead to confusion, disorganization, and decreased output in your organization.
Higher retention, on the other hand, keeps that institutional knowledge alive. This can also be used to pay retirement benefits for older employees. You can’t keep them forever, but if they’re engaged and happy, they’ll be more willing to share their knowledge before retiring.
Keep processes consistent
Your current workforce is already familiar with your company’s internal culture and procedures. This allows them to provide consistent, dependable service. New hires can bring a lot of energy to a team, but they still have a learning curve and need time to learn both formal and informal practices.
When you promote from within, consistency can also benefit your organization. These newly promoted executives are well-versed in your company’s operations and culture. They may make changes, but they will do so with knowledge of the institution.
Minimize burnout
A vicious cycle is created by burnout and high turnover rates. Managers are better equipped to spot signs of burnout, intervene, and break the cycle when HR leaders foster a positive workplace culture that emphasizes work-life balance and regular check-ins.
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Closing Thoughts
Employees want a strong company culture that reflects their values, as well as flexibility, recognition, and opportunity. If you do these things well, they will stick with you and inspire others to do the same.
Employees will look elsewhere if your organization does not meet their needs. With the right employee retention strategies and leaders who care about helping the workforce reach its full potential, retention is attainable. HR plays a critical role in assisting the business by keeping the best talent from even considering leaving, let alone quitting. Learn what your employees require, create a strategy, and improve retention by exceeding their expectations both now and in the future.
[To share your insights, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries.com]