Top 10 Employee Retention Strategies and Ideas to Implement Them
Milton Herman
Employee retention ultimately has a financial impact on any organization. Loyal employees work hard, are motivated, and can improve the bottom line. But what factors affect employee retention? Let’s explore the importance of an innovative employee retention strategy
What are employee and top talent retention?
Employee retention refers to a company’s ability to keep its top employees. When successful strategies are put in place, the turnover rate (number of employees leaving the company voluntarily) is low.
However, it’s not easy to retain top talent. To keep them on your team, it’s important to have an employee retention plan or strategy that can help reduce employee turnover. By using these employee retention techniques, an organization can retain its best employees and reduce the employee turnover rate.
Five main drivers of employee retention are:
- Motivation – encourage employees to do their job well.
- Progression – a guided career path.
- People – working with a supportive team.
- Compassion – providing a healthy work-life balance.
- Benefits – salary and extras.
Consider these five drivers when developing employee retention ideas. They are effective methods for retaining great employees.
It’s a shock to a company to lose skilled talent, especially since this pattern is something that occurs repeatedly. It could indicate that something is going wrong. It may be an issue that is easily fixed, such as poor communication on the intranet platform, to something more serious like poor management strategies.
What is a good retention strategy that is going to produce results?
They should be simple and manageable. The results should be measurable (e.g., a reduction in recruitment costs, fewer employees leaving, staff surveys on the intranet, through social media or face-to-face interviews).
Top 10 Employee Retention Strategies for your Business
Listed below are the top 10 employee retention strategies for your business, along with strategies you can use to implement them.
1. Encourage Open Communication with an Intranet
A well-designed and functional company intranet can deliver major benefits for an organization and its workers. It is also a powerful tool for retaining employees. A modern intranet that provides the information people need to do their jobs well, encourages them to engage and communicate and is a delight to use is one of the best investments a company can make.
When employees are given the right tools to do their work they perform better and achieve job satisfaction. Employee happiness means people are more likely to stay with the company.
An intranet also crosses borders, which is essential for global business. If employees can contact their colleagues on the other side of the world with ease, company goals are achievable by international teams.
A well-built intranet can assist employees in so many ways: e-learning, messaging, social media, company information, and reward systems. Integrate other platforms such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace and you have an intranet that will boost employee engagement and retention.
2. Invest in the Right People
One of the most effective solutions for employee retention is to recruit the right people from the outset. If employees are a good fit for the organization, are motivated and engaged then they are more likely to stay.
When you conduct recruiting interviews with candidates, it is just as important to explain exactly how the organization operates as it is to listen to why the candidate wants the job. If you get a good feeling about a prospective employee make sure they know exactly what to expect from their role, but also that they will fit with the company culture. They should be interviewing you as much as you are vetting them. This will save money over a long-term basis since recruiting is expensive.
And once you’ve hired an employee, keep in touch with them. Make sure the new employee is happy, feels comfortable, and has everything necessary to do their job well. From a laptop to accessing the intranet to a list of colleagues’ names and upcoming events, making the new hire feel welcome right from the start is another effective employee retention strategy.
3. Nurture your Existing Talent
Once you’ve hired the best candidates available, you have to keep them. Skilled employees with a love for their work want a challenge. They want to know where their career path is going and how they’re going to get there.
To empower them to reach their goals, employers should care for and develop their people. Nurture them by offering:
- Regular training and development
- Setting goals and targets
- Performance appraisals
Training can be a series of short courses that take a few hours. These kinds of courses can be easily installed on an internal intranet for employees to access during designated work hours.
Nurturing talent also includes paying for formal education if the organization can afford it. This knowledge development can benefit both the employer and the employee.
Training does not always have to be job-specific. Build your talent pool by offering courses on First Aid, health and safety, social media, creative writing, or even catering.
Employee Engagement
Time to start or overhaul an engagement strategy? Capitalize on Employee Engagement Opportunities.
4. Give Positive Feedback to the Team
This is more than telling people they’re doing a great job. It’s about recognizing if someone is working in a challenging situation, is doing more than their normal workload, or is working extra hours. In any situation praise is important, but when an employee goes beyond their job description it should be acknowledged.
Giving this kind of feedback should be a core part of every manager and supervisor’s day. Get into the habit of being positive instead of jumping on the things that go wrong. A useful strategy to build employee morale is to try to praise team members a certain number of times each day. If people do make mistakes (which they will) remain professional and look at how the employee can learn from the error.
This behavior commands respect and is far more likely to encourage employees to stay with a company rather than being the manager that yells every time there is a crisis.
5. Managers Should be Approachable
Another one of the key successful employee retention ideas is for managers to be available to listen and offer solutions.
Often managers are busy and can appear unapproachable. If time management is difficult, try setting a time each day or week when staff can ask questions, either individually or at a team-building meeting. This avoids interruptions that can break a manager’s chain of thought working through a long To-Do list.
If employees work from home or remotely, this listening time could be a chat room conversation on the intranet, either individually or with the entire team.
Let employees know that they can call or ping a manager for a quick chat when they need direction or a question answered. Their manager will answer as soon as they can.
When employees see they can approach their manager they’ll feel confident about asking questions. This simple communication strategy can help retention and builds trust between employees, managers, and organizations. A survey by the Harvard Business Review reported that people who trust the company they work for are 50% more productive than those who do not.
6. Encourage Open Communication
Communication is at the heart of successful employee retention. Spread the news of successes such as increased performance figures, new products, strategies, and plans. It’s just as important to communicate if things are not going so well since gossip can spread like wild-fire and damage the company’s reputation. If a merger is being planned or the company is thinking of downsizing, be as open and honest as you can. Employees will appreciate this and are more likely to stay with a company that tells them the truth.
Keep the lines of communication open through group chats, news bulletins, surveys, and social media. It’s easy to install apps for these on the company intranet to keep everyone up-to-date. Ensure teams communicate about projects that may affect other departments. The organization should gel and work as one for successful retention.
One-on-one communication also boosts retention. For example, if there’s a performance issue deal with it immediately. Employees who wish to develop will appreciate constructive criticism.
7. Address the Needs of Employees of Different Ages
How an employee feels about their job and the organization they work for may depend on their generation.
- Millennials (age 26-40) have grown up with technology, are comfortable with it, and use it for both work and leisure. A strategy to retain them is to be the modern company that everyone wants to work for. Use media they are familiar with such as likes, comments, and images for feedback on projects or ideas. This can easily be created with a state-of-the-art company intranet.
- Gen Xers (age 41-55) are at the peak of their careers and are possibly the hardest group to retain. They’ve gained knowledge and experience and are still ambitious. They want to learn more and offer their skills to a company that values them.
- Baby Boomers (age 56-76) are nearing retirement and are more likely to stay with a company. However, they still need to be motivated and feel part of the company culture. Their skills can be invaluable and professional development is important to them.
8. Be Flexible
When looking at what factors affect employee retention you should consider flexibility. Employers who want to retain employees should be fair and operate with a culture of understanding that people cannot be expected to work 24/7. They need time off to recharge their batteries and enjoy time with their family.
Employees who work for an employer who understands life carries on outside work are much happier. They know they can ask if they need to take some time off. They don´t feel guilty about switching their cell phone off on weekends or when on vacation.
Don´t take employees for granted — well-rested and relaxed workers will do a better job. Be the employer that considers working from home or flexible hours. Allow employees to propose what works best for them and the organization and reach a compromise. This will foster employee satisfaction and motivation, and encourage them to stay.
Employee Engagement
Time to start or overhaul an engagement strategy? Capitalize on Employee Engagement Opportunities.
9. Offer an Attractive Benefits Plan
Staying in a job is not always about money. Many employees favor the all-round package as a reason to stay with their employer. Often organizations will offer a free lunch or chill-out zones to benefit employees. What can you tempt employees with that’s different? One of the objectives of employee retention strategies is to offer benefits outside of the working environment.
When setting budgets it’s crucial to include employee perks that will make your organization unique. Employees who work for a company that offers holidays or discounts on items such as cars as a reward are those who will stay. If your budget can’t stretch to high-ticket perks, there are still things like extra paid time off, free child-care, insurance, health care, and shopping discounts that can help you keep your employees.
Consider what your competitors are offering. If you pay less than similar employers in your field and offer fewer attractive benefits, employee retention is likely to drop. Invest in your employees and they are more likely to reward it with loyalty and dedication to your company.
10. Listen to your Employees
Listening is essential to retain employees. This applies to current employees and those who leave. It’s even important to listen to happy employees as they can give valuable insight into the ambiance of the organization and what makes people happy or unhappy.
A great way to find out people’s opinions is to run surveys. These can be short, three-minute opportunities to gather feedback on the intranet by checking boxes to more in-depth questionnaires. It is important to show employees you’ve listened and will take action. For example, staff may wish to leave because of management style or lack of communication from the top down. These situations can be easily fixed and showing you listen and respond can reduce employee turnover.
This policy also applies to exit interviews. There can be many reasons for an employee to leave, from dissatisfaction with the salary to a lack of career development or personality clashes with colleagues. The key is to prevent these situations before they arise.
Employee retention refers to a company’s ability to keep its top employees. When successful strategies are put in place, the turnover rate (number of employees leaving the company voluntarily) is low.
- Invest in the Right People
- Nurture your Existing Talent
- Managers Should be Approachable
- Encourage Open Communication
- Use the right internal communication tools
- Analyze retention figures
- Hold exit interviews
- Monitor