10 Effective Employee Retention Strategies

Ever wondered why an employee quit? What did they find more intriguing about a different workplace compared to yours? What measures can you take to retain your employees? Here comes the Employee Retention Strategy — this helps in retaining your employees.

Employee retention strategies keep employees focused on their tasks so they can work best for the company. Read on as this article sheds light on the need for a retention strategy and discusses 10 effective Employee retention strategies.

Why Is an Employee Retention Strategy Required?

If it is an employee’s choice to switch workplaces, why does your company need an employee retention strategy? Here are a few points to consider:

Company’s investment in training an employee: Consider the amount of time and effort invested into the training of the leaving employee to fit your company. The same or more amount of training is required for the newbies.

Resources required to replace: What are the monetary and non-monetary resources needed to fill the position again? Is the employee solely responsible for any tasks that no one else does? How ready is your management team to handle the everyday tasks without burdening and scaring the current employees?

Burdening your current employees with extra tasks can lead to stress, and one more person is added to the “I Quit” list.

Given that one employee leaving your company affects the work environment one way or the other, it is better to implement and practise the Employee Retention Strategy to avoid multiple members saying, “I Quit.”

1. Onboard and Orientation

As much as you expect the candidates to make a good impression in the interviews, the company also needs to maintain an excellent first impression. Hence the retention strategy needs to start right from the onboarding and orientation program.

Explain the following and make things clear to the newbies during the Onboarding and Orientation program:

Work culture: The newbies must know and understand the work culture in person, rather than documents or presentations. Explain your company’s dress code, what every day looks like, zero-tolerance rules, do’s and don’ts, and office hours.

Support: Keep the new employees informed about who or where they can reach out for help. It will be constructive if they are assigned one go-to person for the time being. This can ensure they receive every support they require until they get used to the new place.

Part of the team: Make them feel welcomed and part of your company. You can achieve this by including them in team meetings and allocating some time to interact with fellow employees in the company.

2. The Training Program

The training program is an extended version of the onboarding and orientation process. Be it in your office or virtual, the training program speaks volumes about your company. Set quality training materials for the new employees to understand your company process better.

You can either hire trainers to teach the process or assign the new employees to current employees. This step is a win-win because new hires feel welcomed and part of the team as they get to spend time with a colleague with no hierarchy standards scaring them from opening up. While the exact process brings ultimate joy to your current employees, the employee retention strategy works the best because they feel that the management trusts them.

The training program is not only for new employees, it is also for seasoned employees. This means to upskill based on new industry requirements. Upskill training makes seasoned employees see how much growth and value your company provides, and their retention rate is higher.

3. Perks and Benefits

Perks and benefits can boost your employee morale. It is better to stay upfront about the perks during your hiring process. These might drag new employees to your company while helping you retain your current employees. Here are a few perks and benefits that every employee looks forward to:

Flexible hours.
Work from home.
Health Insurance.
Stress management program.
Reimbursement plan (Wi-Fi bills, Fitness subscription, or Digital subscriptions).

4. Communication and Feedback

Let your employees know they can approach you with any issues stopping them from performing at their best. Listen to their concerns and try solving them at the earliest opportunity.

Schedule time-to-time meetings to discuss the future of your employee and the company. Discuss their performance, contribution, and expectations to meet the company’s future goals and help.

5. Rewards and Recognition

Rewards and recognition is the best employee retention strategy you can implement in your company. Rewards don’t necessarily require you to invest money (if the budget doesn’t fit the expenses.) You can try the following,

Thanking your employee for the effort.
Acknowledging their work in front of the team and applause may be.
Sending an official email, cc’ing everyone in the company (the replies will boost your employee’s confidence).

You can try rewarding your employees with the following if your budget allows:

Incentives.
Giftcards.
Promotion (which is essential and the best move when one does a wonderful job for a long time).

6. Work-Life Balance

Work-Life balance is a crucial factor that has boomed during the work from home culture. Your employees should have their personal post office hours. To make that happen, it is better they get their job done during the working hours and you do not approach them post office hours. You can set fixed office hours and mention it as your company’s USP to new and current employees. This way, your employees are not burnt out quickly while trying to complete their work without delay.

7. Work Arrangement

Lockdown has brought a different perspective about working — many employees are way more comfortable working from home than working from the office. It is not a surprise to see employees switch jobs to avoid working from an office.

As an employee retention strategy, you can implement the flexibility of working from home, which can make all your employees feel good about the company.

8. Encouraging Inputs

It is not only the star performers’ duty to give inputs for the company. Encourage everyone to give their input. As a form of respect to their input, inform which idea is implemented and why others are not considered. This way, you let them know their inputs are valued and respected.

9. Celebrating Milestones

Who else can or should celebrate your employee’s milestones if not the company? Keep track of your employee’s performances and celebrate every project they complete successfully or mark one, two, or three years of anniversary in your company. After all, they worked with the company for so many years, they deserve to be appreciated.

10. Acceptable Payscale

Last, but never least, payscale or salary is the main factor that fades all the pain points (professional struggles, sometimes personal as well) away. When the payment is not convincing, there are high chances your employee might be looking for a different job while at your company.

Few surveys show, 45% of the employees quit their job because of the unsatisfactory payscale. Your company needs to stay updated about the industry pay standards and ensure your employees receive nothing less.

Regular revising payscale (performance needs to be convincing) and offering pay based on skills and experience should forever be your company’s employee retention strategy.

Conclusion

Deciding to stay or leave is entirely up to your employee; however, the extra effort you put in might help retain them. Though there are unavoidable situations where they may have to quit, at least your employee will know they are respected and valued in the company. They might put in a good word to others or might return to your company one day.

LogicMelon

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Email: sales@logicmelon.com or call LogicMelon (UK) +44 (0) 203 553 3667 (USA) +1 860 269 3089