Attracting and retaining top talent is a principal challenge faced by many organizations. The huge competition in the job market makes it difficult to hire the best candidates and keep them satisfied in their roles. Therefore, to stay competitive in the business landscape organizations must adopt effective employee retention strategies. In this blog, we will discuss some of the major causes as well as effective strategies to attract and retain top talent.
Employee Retention: What is it?
Companies thrive in the competitive market when their employees choose to stay long in it without actively seeking other job opportunities. Employee retention is the organization’s ability to hold on to its employees for a longer period. The rate of employee retention and turnover vary in different organizations. Several factors are responsible for a higher retention rate within the organization.
The opposite of it is employee turnover where employees leave the company due to various reasons and new hires replace the existing positions.However, to build effective employee retention strategies, you need to understand the primary causes of turnover. If you can point out the main causes of your employees’ abandonment of your organization, you can reduce the rate. Building a loyal and engaged workforce is the first step towards talent retention and reduction in turnover rate. Workforce retention is crucial because hiring new candidates involves a lot of stages which are both time-consuming and expensive.
Root Causes of Employee Turnover:
Employees are the backbone of a company and the overall performance of a company depends fully on it. Employees can leave the existing company due to various reasons. Some of the reasons are inevitable while too much employee turnover negatively affects organizations' reputation, morale, value, goal, and productivity.
- Relocation:
The worker might need to shift to another city due to medical needs. According to some research, employees want to work from their hometown or cities nearer to their family's location. Therefore, when the job location is quite far from his spouse and family, he might think of relocation. Moreover, a higher standard and cost of living also make some staff think of moving to a new city.
- Lack of career growth opportunities:
One of the primary causes of employee turnover is the limited scope for career development opportunities. Lack of opportunities like upskilling programs, training, and promotions leads to dissatisfaction within the workforce. But most of the organizations hardly focus on the employee’s career growth and development. Thus many of the staff shift to new jobs for better opportunities to grow.
- Inadequate benefit package:
Attractive salary and other benefit packages are crucial to retain and motivate the workers. If the employees find that their benefit package is inadequate they leave the existing company. So, If you don't offer a competitive package, you might lose your top talents.
- No work-life balance:
The absence of work-life balance creates employee burnout. Long working hours, unrealistic working expectations, lack of holidays, and inflexible working can create job dissatisfaction within the staff. Most employees, especially females, seek jobs that will help them maintain a healthy work life.
- Lack of employee recognition:
Employees long for recognition and appreciation for their hard work and contributions. They feel unvalued and excluded when they don't receive praise and appreciation for their performance. A workplace with poor or no acknowledgment, respect, and prized for its workers’ worth creates dissatisfaction among the staff. Thus, it will lead to an increase in turnover.
- Inferior leadership and management skills:
Poor leadership and management skills are key factors responsible for job dissatisfaction in the workplace. Employees who don't feel supported or motivated may turn frustrated and leave the organization. Therefore, team leaders should be aware of inclusivity. They should value all members and their thoughts.
- Less job satisfaction:
The lack of proper employee engagement initiatives makes them feel bored in their job roles. When the employees find their work uninteresting or unrealistic and do not align with their job role, they may resign.
10 Effective Employee Retention Strategies for your Organization
Effective employee retention strategies will help to hold the talent and skills in the organization necessary for achieving its goal. Thus, it will lead to a more stable workforce with an increase in productivity. Adopt the below-discussed retention strategies for your employees if you feel that your company is at risk of losing your top talents due to some issues.
- Improvement in the onboarding process:
The very journey of an employee's success in the organization starts with onboarding. The onboarding, as well as orientation programs, should inform the new members about the company culture. The new hires should be made aware of how to fruitfully contribute and thrive in the workforce. How you instruct and teach your workers will actually set the tone for their longevity within the company.
- Outstanding mentorship programs:
An effective employee retention strategy can be offering mentorship programs for workers. A good mentor acts as a guide who can show the members the path to success. Well-designed mentorship programs can encourage, motivate, and support new hires as well as the existing staff. Thus, helps the members to navigate challenges and work smoothly. Team performance and talent retention can greatly benefit from good mentorship programs.
- Attractive package, perks, and other compensation:
It is essential to offer a good salary as well as other compensations that your competitors provide. If you cannot increase your employees’ payments right now, try to provide them with competitive compensation that will retain them longer.
Compensation and perks such as performance bonuses or festival bonuses will increase their job satisfaction. Perks like health insurance coverage, gym membership, retirement schemes, gift vouchers, and movie tickets will motivate them to focus more on their work. In fact, they are great ways to boost employee engagement in the workplace.
- Employee wellness scheme:
Many renowned organizations have already started employee wellness measures to improve their mental and physical wellness. When employees are physically and mentally fit, they remain happy and satisfied. Wellness offerings like stress management programs, retirement planning, reimbursement for fitness, and yoga classes can help to improve your members’ wellness.
- Hybrid and remote work:
Employees want to balance their family life with work. Therefore, offering them hybrid or remote working, flexible working hours, and paid time off keeps them satisfied. Promoting their work-life balance helps your members to stay productive in the long run.
- Promoting a healthy environment:
Build a positive workplace that focuses on inclusion, respect, and value for all its members. When employees feel valued and appreciated for their merits they stay longer in the organization.
- Employee recognition and rewards:
Appreciate your employees’ hard work with rewards and celebrations. This will motivate them and they will be committed to your organization. A “Thank you” note or a simple reward for exceeding the deadline will make them feel valued and happy.
- Training and career development programs:
Employees want to work in an organization that will provide them scope to learn and develop continuously. So, upskilling and reskilling them will be highly beneficial. Other career development programs include training the new hires, leadership training programs for the future leaders, etc. You can also give them access to some online platforms like Udemy, Coursera, etc which offer various skills development courses.
- Conduct exit interviews:
When an employee quits the job, conduct an exit interview with him. This will help you to know the root cause of turnover. You will therefore, get an idea of the areas that need improvement and can prevent further turnover.
- Recurring feedback report on employee performance:
During the meeting sessions deliver feedback on each employee and their areas of improvement. This will help them to focus on their short-term as well as long-term goals and will help them to view themselves with the company in the future. Prepare also an annual
performance feedback report of each employee. Based on their feedback reviews, prepare a customized training program for each of them. This will help them to reach their goal and thus, make them happy.
Rules to Implement Employee retention Strategies Successfully
Follow these key rules to ensure your retention strategies are effective and yield long-term results.
- Evaluate your current retention rate:
Make an assessment of the recent retention rate of your organization. This will give you an idea of the underlying issues of turnover and suggest areas of improvement.
- Employee survey:
Regularly survey your employees by asking them to share their feedback. Take their feedback through surveys or one-on-one conversations. Ask them about what they like most and what changes they prefer within the organization.
- Track your progress:
Track the progress by observing the percentage of increase or decrease in retention rate. Find out how well are the employee retention strategies working for you. Maintain data on your staff retention record too.
The above-mentioned rules will help you to know the employee retention strategies that will best work for your organization. Successfully implementing the strategies will help you to stay productive and competitive in the business market.
We are keen to know which employee retention practices work for your organization.
