Employee Retention

Every employer’s goal is to retain productive employees that contribute to the company’s overall success. However, there are many internal and external factors that can persuade an employee to leave.

Hiring new employees can be a big and expensive task. Therefore, implementing employee retention strategies is important to the long-term success of your business.

In this guide, we’ll explain what employee retention is, why it’s important, and various strategies that you can implement in your business.

What is Employee Retention?

Employee retention is the ability to keep your staff for a long period of time. It is the goal of every employer to retain the best employees that contribute to the company’s success.

Retaining productive employees and implementing employee retention strategies will also create a positive and rewarding workplace culture. This will help employees to stay and continue to share in the success of your business.

Why is employee retention important?

Employee retention promotes the health, success, and culture of your business. Hiring new employees can take time and can be expensive. So, a high employee turnover rate can bring a multitude of issues including high costs and low productivity.

Retaining employees and implementing employee retention strategies will benefit your business in ways which include:

• Reducing costs.
• Improving employee morale and workplace culture.
• Reducing time spent on employee recruiting.
• Enhancing employee engagement and advancement.

When there is a revolving door of employees, important positions in your business are routinely left unfilled. Unfilled positions result in a loss of productivity and a loss in business.

It may be difficult to ask other employees to pick up additional work, especially if the role has been vacant for a long time. Employees who are asked to pick up additional work might get burnt out and end up leaving as well, causing the cycle to repeat itself.

What is Employee Retention Rate?

Employee retention rate is a method to measure the percentage of employees who stay with your business over a specific period.

Like employee turnover rate, this can be easily calculated to identify any gaps in your business model.

How to increase employee retention rate

If you are seeing low employee retention in your business, you may want to revisit your employee retention strategy to determine its effectiveness.

If you do not have any employee retention strategies in your business, you can easily implement one that fits your business needs.

Best Employee Retention Strategies

There are various forms of employee retention strategies that can assist you with retaining employees and decreasing turnover that don’t necessarily have to be costly.

Of course, every employee would like additional compensation, but there are other benefits that you could offer to deter employees from switching jobs.

Offer Competitive Salary and Benefits

The most common reason why people change jobs is for a better salary. A strong pay and benefits package will make employees feel more appreciated for their hard work.

When employees ask for a raise, you should consider each request and conduct your due diligence in determining whether to accept it.

Benefits can be even more important than salary for some employees, especially for people at different stages of life. Employees want to ensure their families are taken care of. Enhanced and flexible insurance plans can offer just that.

Improve Your Recruitment Process

Having a strong recruitment and onboarding process will clearly identify the job expectations from the beginning.

The onboarding process is the first interaction between new employees and your business. Hiring a candidate well suited to the role increases the likelihood of them staying with your company longer.

Recognize and Reward Good Work

Employee recognition is a great way to boost retention. They will feel appreciated by you acknowledging their hard and dedicated work. Many employers have implemented internal reward systems that recognize an employee’s accomplishments and external methods such as soliciting positive feedback from clients.

Provide opportunities for growth

Giving your employees opportunities to advance their career is a good way to retain staff. Many employees leave because of a lack of opportunities to advance their careers. You can implement workshops and training courses to help employees advance to other positions within your company.

Additionally, promoting from within can assist with retention and has immense cost and time-saving benefits. Promoting your existing employees instead of hiring new individuals for management positions will show them that they’re valued and can also have a positive impact on company culture and morale.

Create a Healthy Work Environment

While salary and opportunity to grow are important to retain employees, the working environment can play a major role in employees leaving. A poor work environment or workplace culture can push employees out the door. In some cases, employees may feel they are bullied or harassed and have no other choice but to leave.

It is important that you create a workplace where everyone is treated equally and respected, free from discrimination. This will not only help with your overall workplace but may also help attract and retain new talent.

Conduct Exit Interviews

It is inevitable that some employees will leave and seek opportunities somewhere else. When they do leave, it is good practice to conduct exit interviews. They can help you identify any room for improvement in your workplace and can lead to changes in your business’ policies and procedures.

Exit interviews sound like a tedious task, but it is critical to identify any trends as to why employees are leaving your company.

Does Training Increase Employee Retention?

People presume that training only involves assisting new employees when they are first hired. However, training should act as a continuous method of retaining employees.

Not properly training employees can have a negative impact and increase turnover. Employees who are not properly trained or equipped with the resources to complete their job responsibilities may be more inclined to leave.

Once the initial training is completed, it is important that you follow up with continuous training because it keeps them informed of industry developments and allows them to have a better understanding of their work.

The better an employee understands their tasks, the better they will be at completing them. This will allow you to promote them internally, raise their pay and, in turn, boost retention levels.

Get Advice on Employee Retention with BrightHR

Employee retention is a never-ending battle for many employers. Even if you implement the best retention strategies in your workplace, employees will still leave for various reasons. However, there are many strategies that you can implement that can help you retain productive employees.

If you need assistance with employee retention or implementing employee retention strategies, our BrightAdvice service allows you to receive quality advice on any employment issues you may have.

Contact us on 1 888 220 4924 or book a demo today.