One of those most important metrics you should check regularly as a business is your employee retention rate. If it’s low and you have high staff turnover then it’s time to start investing more resources into retaining talent. Your workforce is one of the most valuable assets you have so you need to look after your employees’ wellbeing! To do this, you can incorporate the points below into an effective strategy to improve your employee retention rate and tackle your staff turnover.
Don’t overpromise
We all know what it’s like to be sold the dream in a job interview but how many companies actually fulfil their promises? Whilst interviewing candidates for a role at your company, you should restrain from overpromising as it could come back to bite you later. Watch out when you’re talking about subjects like pay, holiday, benefits, training and working hours as you don’t want your new starter to have expectations which you cannot meet.
Employees who don’t receive what they were promised often feel cheated, disappointed, demotivated and may even want to leave. So, the lesson to learn here is not to commit to anything you can’t handle later down the line. Not only will it lower your staff retention rate if people choose to leave but it can damage your reputation and lead to negative reviews on Glassdoor and LinkedIn.
Offer a competitive benefits package
The benefits you receive from a company can often be a deal breaker when job seeking. Ensure you offer your employees the best possible package you can in order to prevent them from leaving for another company’s benefits.
You could provide health insurance, paid holiday, flexible working hours, dental care plans and a tonne of other benefits to encourage your employees to stay. It might even be worth checking out apps like Hive360 and Perkbox which give your staff access to a huge range of discounts and benefits. You should also consider offering longer serving members of staff more benefits to incentivise others in the company to work for you as long as they have!
Reward staff for their efforts
People enjoy being recognised for their efforts so why not offer your staff rewards when they meet KPIs or performance-based goals? It’s a sure-fire way to motivate and drive your workforce as well as showing them how much you care. Whether it’s a trip abroad, gift card for their favourite shop or team lunch out, your employees will appreciate the gesture and feel more valued. This could be tracked and monitored via your recruitment software.
Encourage personal and professional development
Your employees will be less likely to leave if you invest time and resources into their personal and professional development. Not only does it benefit you as well but it can improve company culture and employee engagement. Find out from them if there are any qualifications they would like to achieve and give them the time and resources to do so. You could also provide internal training and give them the opportunity to discuss their career plan with their manager and seek ways which they can develop.
Recognise personal circumstances
One way which you can show your employees you care is to recognise their personal circumstances and respect their mental and physical health. If they know that you have their health and wellbeing in mind, they’ll feel more supported which is a huge factor when it comes to retaining talent. You can also support them by being open to the idea of flexible working hours to accommodate for appointments or emergencies.
Conduct exit interviews
Despite being able to reduce staff turnover, it’s inevitable that people will leave the company for reasons outside of your control. When an employee does decide to call it a day you should conduct an interview with them to find out more information.
- Why do they want to leave?
- What could you do better?
- Are they willing to continue the relationship?
- Would they recommend a job at your company to someone else?
- What did they like and dislike about working for you?
- Did you provide them with everything they needed?
- What is their next job like?
- What attracted them to their new job?
Anything you learn from them about why they want to leave will be able to help you with your employee retention strategy to prevent it from happening again.
Hire a human resources director
This isn’t essential to all companies, especially smaller ones, but having an HR director can really help manage all your employee related processes. They’ll make sure all employees are treated fairly and have strategies in place to increase employee retention.
If you start putting these suggestions into action, you’ll see your employee retention rate begin to increase. Just remember how important it is to make your staff feel wanted and needed in the company!
