7 Fool-Proof Employee Retention Strategies

We know employee retention was never easy and thanks to the pandemic, it became even harder for employers to keep their employees engaged and retained. As difficult as it is to hire the right employees, it is even harder to retain those employees in the long run. That is why in this article. we will understand 7 Fool-Proof Employee Retention Strategies, to be able to retain those employees.

In fact, 46% of HR leaders believe that employee retention is their biggest concern for them. Today employees keep switching jobs frequently. Considering the costs associated with high turnover and productivity losses, HR managers say that employee retention is their number one priority today.

To substantiate, the cost of losing a single employee is somewhere between 16% to 213% of his annual salary depending on his position in the company. Such findings highlight the true nature of the issue of employee retention.

It is devastating for an organization. Given that, it is imperative for every business organization aspiring to soar high in the sky of success to focus on employee retention.

Furthermore, if you are a manager, recruiter, or employer who is concerned about the company’s retention rate and is looking for some actionable strategies to boost it, then you are at the right place. This blog will meticulously highlight some of the key strategies that will help you in boosting retention and enhance the growth of your enterprise.

You can’t stop employees from leaving until you have a plan to make them stay

The next section will enlighten us on the 7 Fool-Proof Employee Retention Strategies.

7 Fool-Proof Employee Retention Strategies

#1. Escalate your Onboarding Process

Do you know that 31% of the employees decide to quit their jobs within the first 6 months of employment?

The first few months of a new joining are crucial for both employees and employers. The initial experience employees have within a company, decides how long they would stay with it.

But when it comes to employers, the first few months is when they invest the most in their employees in both monetary and non-monetary terms. Thus, sometimes employers put a lot of pressure on the new recruits right away in the beginning. They aspire to get a return on their investment from the new employees as soon as possible.

No doubt, it is natural for employers like you to expect high returns on your investment right from the beginning, but it is important to understand that a rough onboarding process can discourage new hires.

Hence, along with focusing on employee training and mentoring, it is also crucial for you to make sure that employees have a smooth onboarding process and welcomed into the company with open hands.

It is always advisable to involve technology which can be used to send personalized emails to the new employees to make them feel comfortable. Moreover, technology can also be used to make it easy for new employees to interact with other colleagues and give them the opportunity to socialize.

The more they socialize, the more they’ll get inclined towards your company. After all, connections bind us more deeply than any other thing in the world.

If you successfully connect with your new hires and make them comfortable, you’ll see them sticking with your company for a long period of time

#2. Promote Positive Company Culture

According to research, employees who do not like their company’s culture are 24% more likely to quit their job. A negative company culture does not only disengage employees but also affects the employer brand of the company which further affects future hiring and recruitment.

Hence, it is really crucial for employees to foster positive company culture in order to retain them for a long period of time. There are many factors such as the management, company policies, and employees’ behavior towards each other that together impact company culture. To build a positive company culture, it is imperative for you to keep all these factors in mind.

But, the task of looking at all these factors might be challenging, given below are some strategies for building a positive work culture in your company. These strategies take care of all the factors that impact employee turnover. Hence, by implementing them, you can feel assured that you’ll get the intended results.

Actionable strategies to build a good company culture:

Provide and collect feedback: Providing and collecting feedback is an effective way to improve and maintain good company culture. You should always provide constant feedback on the performance of your employees and also take feedback from your employees regarding the work culture. After exchanging feedback, some required actions are necessary to take. This will assist in clearing out the expectations from both the stakeholders’ side and will assist in promoting positivity in the work culture.
Create good company policies: The values and ethics that a company possesses have a major role in shaping the culture of the company. Hence, a company should make sure it follows ethical practices and also ensure that they are clearly reflected in the policies of the company. Moreover, strict action should be taken against anyone who does not follow and respect the company policies and ethical practices. Some of the major ethical issues that often arise include gender bias, unequal pay, etc. When a company reflects strong ethical values and good company policies, it assists in creating a positive culture.
Establish rules for employee behavior towards each other: The way employees treat each other in the workplace defines the company culture to a large extent. Hence, employers should make sure that employees exhibit cordial behavior towards each other, contributing to the overall positivity of the workplace. Moreover, diversity should be embraced in the work culture so that employees get comfortable and respect people from all parts of society. Sensitivity training is an effective way to help employees get rid of partiality tendencies and become open to people from all backgrounds. When employees respect each other, it assists in creating a positive environment.

Besides, maintaining a positive work culture will boost the motivation and productivity of the employees and will encourage them to stay with a company for a long period of time.

#3. Boost Wellness Programs

As per Forbes, 61% of employees feel burned out on their jobs and mental burnout is one of the major reasons for employee turnover. Along with this, people are becoming more and more self-conscious about their fitness and health both mentally and physically. That is the reason why they are also looking for jobs that provide them with good health facilities and benefits. In fact, almost 90 percent of employees prioritize health and wellness packages when choosing a company.

Secondly, if you aspire to hire and retain employees in the long run, you should focus on employee wellness. Organizing various physical health checkups periodically to make sure that employees do not face any physical health issues while working for the growth of the company is one of the most effective steps that you can take in this regard.

Moreover, to ensure good mental health, companies can organize various mental health counseling sessions guiding employees with effective ways to lower their stress levels and maintain their work-life balance.

Besides, you can also organize multiple wellness programs in order to maintain the physical and mental health of the employees. There are many companies out there that offer such wellness programs. Such efforts made by you will reflect the company’s care for its employees.

This will further assist in engaging and motivating employees to be more productive towards the growth of the company. Thus, employees would want to stay longer with your company as it takes care of their mental and physical health.

#4. Empower Autonomy

Autonomy refers to giving the freedom to employees to choose their working style. Recently empowering autonomy has become the best solution to provide employees with happiness and satisfaction.

Yet, there are many companies that prefer micromanaging the employees by keeping a close check on them. This does not only reflect the lack of trust of employers in their team but also frustrates employees and disengage them.

Giving employees the flexibility to work according to their schedules and in their own style, shows the company’s faith in its team and motivates the employees to work harder and smarter. Hence, if you want to engage your workforce and retain your employees in the long run, you should give complete autonomy to them.

#5. Focus on Constant Upskilling and reskilling

As per Mckinsey Global Survey, 3 out of 4 employees claim that reskilling and upskilling played a huge role in boosting the productivity of the employees. Moreover, 58% of the employees said upskilling and reskilling were beneficial to them, thereby motivating them to stay with their existing company in the long run.

Every employee wants to work with a company that believes in providing growth opportunities to its employees instead of only focusing on the company’s profit. Which means, you should focus on providing constant upskilling and reskilling opportunities to your workforce. You can organize various mentoring sessions or can provide multiple courses to enhance the skills of your employees.

Upskilling and reskilling your employees will not only benefit their growth but will also make them more efficient and productive for the company. This will result in enhanced growth of the company as well.

To see whether your upskilling and reskilling efforts are working, you can make use of different key performance indicators. For example, you can measure employee productivity and calculate the course completion rate to know how much your employees have evolved through upskilling.

#6. Provide Effective Remuneration

Let’s face it, competitive salaries have always been one of the most effective ways to attract and retain employees in the business world. However, employees are now looking for more than just salaries in order to stay for a longer period of time. They are looking for all kinds of monetary and non-monetary benefits that can assist in their personal growth and development.

They are looking for remuneration in forms of competitive salaries, recognition, and paid leaves. If employees feel that their efforts are being valued and recognized in a workplace, they work harder and be more efficient to invest more effort in order to receive recognition.

Hence, employers always need to make sure that employees are receiving the value of their efforts in multiple forms. Moreover, companies should keep a close eye on employee performance and offer increments to those who deserve them.

Providing healthy compensation to the employees will not only make them more productive but will assist in hooking them with the company for a long period of time.

After all, money is the basic reason why we work. Otherwise, most people do not like their jobs much. All these together will assist in the attainment of your SMART goals.

#7. Offer a Diverse Range of Tasks to your Workforce

What if we say we will give you only one type of food for the whole week? It would be impossible for you to eat the same kind of food. Similarly, performing the same tasks and duties for a long period of time becomes tedious.

When employees have to perform similar tasks, it not only disengages them but also makes them switch jobs because of lack of growth after a certain period of time. Thus, employees like that you should offer diverse tasks to their workforce. You should frequently offer new duties and responsibilities to your employees, according to their capabilities.

By doing so, you can prevent monotonousness from seeping into your workforce’s lives, thus, keeping things exciting for everyone. When excitement continues, why would your employees look for another job outside of your company?

Wrapping Up: 7 Fool-Proof Employee Retention Strategies

Hence, the above 7 Fool-Proof Employee Retention Strategies will effectively assist employers, managers, and recruiters to retain the employees in their respective companies for a long time.

To conclude, with many big companies becoming more employee-centric nowadays, it is also becoming harder for other employers to retain their top talents in the company. The need is to effectively understand the needs of the employees and fulfill those needs in order to retain them for a longer period of time.

Author Bio: Jessica Robinson

Jessica Robinson loves to write interesting and knowledgeable blogs regarding business management, education and life to satiate the curiosity of her lovely readers. Currently, she is serving as a content manager at the ‘Speaking Polymath’. Every piece of content that she writes demonstrates her immense love and passion for her profession.

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