What is employee retention?

Employee retention is multi-dimensional. In short it could be described as the effort businesses make to keep their current staff with a focus on limiting good employee turnover.

During times of higher unemployment leading to increased access to available talent, you may ask, “Is employee retention still important these days?” The answer is a resounding, “Yes! – It’s essential.”

First, onboarding and training new staff requires a large resource and time investment. Employee replacement costs can range from at least one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. Second, retaining your best employees helps you remain competitive and agile in a fast-paced, rapidly evolving marketplace. Once the labour market tightens again, keeping your best employees will become increasingly difficult, unless strong retention strategies have been implemented.

There’s no better time than now to develop these strategies aimed at increasing your chances of keeping your best employees. Treat them well now and reap the rewards. A boost in job satisfaction results in higher productivity, improved company loyalty, and, ultimately, increased profits.

Best employee retention strategies
You can take several steps to increase employee retention, including those highlighted below (not in any order of importance).

1. Encourage taking time off
Employees are working more hours and experiencing more stress and anxiety than usual due to COVID-19. The extra responsibilities of being a parent 24/7, a teacher, an activity coordinator etc, and juggling a career leaves employees feeling tired and burned out. Encourage them to take vacations and use time off, even if it’s just a day to recharge. Leadership should consider publicly encouraging this while instructing managers to follow through behind the scenes.

2. Focus on value rather than time spent
We live in a culture focused on time spent on a project or deliverable versus the value it provides to a team or organisation. Being flexible in the hours you require your employees to work – productivity is key! 

3. Reduce meetings
Meetings held for the sake of having a meeting can slow things down in our fast-paced, digital-first world. It’s time to limit time-wasting activities and focus on getting the job done. This will help limit employee stress and discontent.

4. Be extra vigilant about respecting your employees’ time
Showing you value your employees’ time conveys that you care about them and believe in fairness. Avoid assuming their office hours are expanded because remote workers don’t have to commute.

5. Genuinely promote work-life balance
Many companies commend the virtues of work-life balance and support a culture that encourages and rewards this, because continually overworking employees is not conducive to employee retention or job satisfaction, often leading to burnout. Encourage staff to use their vacation time, and if overtime is necessary to wrap up a project, consider incentives to make the worker feel appreciated.

6. Over-communicate the company vision for the future
Employees just want to know where they stand, the company’s vision for the future, and what everyone is working towards. Over-communicate the value that employees genuinely bring to this company’s vision.

7. Make returning to the office a choice
A Stanford Research study shows that employees who work from home have 50% less turnover. If your organisation has had success with remote workers, why not allow employees to continue this flexibility?

8. Foster positive work relationships and teams
Positive workplace relationships are essential for employee satisfaction, retention, teamwork, loyalty, and optimal productivity. Create ways to foster collaboration, including occasional team-building experiences. These activities also help combat feelings of isolation and loneliness in remote workers. In addition to face-to-face team building options, there are many virtual team building activities and games available for a remote workforce. Examples include a virtually hosted game show competition between teams etc.

9. Communication and employee engagement
Staff engagement can be critical to a company’s success:

• Engaged employees are more likely to be productive and higher performing, and
• Employers can foster employee engagement through effective communication, offering rewards and discussing career advancement.

10. Provide a competitive salary and benefits
Pay, perks, and benefits matter. Compensation plays a major role in acquiring talented employees and driving productivity. The quality of compensation packages determines the quality of an organisation’s employees, how well they perform, and whether they are engaged in the work they do.

11. Ensure employees are working under the right manager
If you’ve ever asked someone why they left a job, chances are they’ll mention having a “bad” boss. It may be because the manager lacked the soft skills to motivate and encourage employees. Still, sometimes it comes down to the employee and manager not being a good match. If you have a valuable employee you want to retain, consider the suitability of the match with their manager. Make sure they are with the right manager to support their growth.

12. Hire the right people
Sure, this sounds obvious, but it’s not always easy to do if you focus primarily on hard skills during the hiring process. Employees with poor soft skills can spread negativity throughout the workforce and create a toxic work environment. Those with the wrong hard skills lack credibility. When hiring, look for job candidates who possess the right hard skills for their positions, but be sure to include soft skills, such as active listening, empathy, and collaboration.

13. Adopt a social recognition system to recognise employees
It’s no secret people want to feel appreciated, understood, and recognised for a job well done. Resist falling into the pattern of only recognising top performers. Average-achievers also contribute and are likely a larger group than your all-stars. By adopting a social reward and recognition platform, you can make them feel appreciated in the workplace, so they’re less likely to get discouraged and quit. Even simple acts of recognition, such as giving workers a gift card to a local restaurant, treating them with respect, and telling them you appreciate them, goes a long way.

14. Be as transparent as possible
Transparency is becoming an overused word these days, but when decisions occur behind closed doors, employees feel left out, leading to discontent. Using collaborative team tools such as Microsoft Teams to help build transparency, but don’t underestimate the power of adopting a genuine open-door policy to boost motivation and build trust.

15. Communicate how employee roles connect to the business mission

Everyone wants to feel like what they do matters and makes an impact. It’s not uncommon for all employees, from lower-level workers to higher-level contributors, to lose sight of this. Start by merely communicating your company’s mission and vision to your team, then articulate how each job function contributes.

16. Delegation and Empowerment

The key lies in delegating in a way that creates an organic sense of empowerment. This is especially important when teams are working remotely, as it strengthens the team’s autonomy to decide how to work and makes it easier for them to work, as well as making it easier for leaders to manage their teams. Empowerment always comes from a noble intent to make others grow, so focus more on the person to ensure that he/she becomes better. This in turn automatically leads him/her to better execute tasks.

The success of a company often depends on the capabilities, dedication, and innovation of its employees. By implementing these strategies, organisations can create a workplace that values its employees, promotes job satisfaction, and reduces turnover.