Best Employee Retention Strategies

According to a retention report by Work Institute in 2019, about 35% of employees may quit their jobs each year by 2023. The report further showed that one in every four workers would leave their jobs as the years goes by. More than 42 million U.S. workers left their jobs voluntarily in 2019. If that trend continues, more than one in three employees will voluntarily leave their positions by 2023. The world is currently in an intensive work revolution phase which has seen a fast-growing rate of globalization, industrialization and technological advancement, development of new skills, an extensive quest for excellent customer experience, and different type of work options such as remote and hybrid work. These changes and statistics are bringing businessmen and women to understand that talents now have a broad range of options to choose from, and thus they must review their employees’ acquisition and management. 

In a bid to start at the top of your game, employers need to create a series of strategies in keeping their employees and attracting better talents. Organizations that will maintain good talent retention must be open-minded to flexibility, work around a system of appraisal and recognition, operate high-level open feedback pipelines, and many more.

In this guide, you will learn about some of the most relevant practices you can adopt in keeping employees at your organization.

What is Employee Retention 

Different authors and works of literature have given their scholastic and professional approaches to the meaning of employee retention. However, some definitions stood out as a result of their simplicity and clarity. Employee retention is often referred to as the ability and capability a company can exercise in keeping or retaining its workers in a bid to create a reliable, safe, and efficient performing workforce. Another popular definition described employee retention as the various strategies and frameworks put in place by an employer to retain its best and most efficient workers and also ensure the reduction in the voluntary and involuntary rate of turnovers in the organization. One of the major goals of employee retention is to facilitate a great working environment in the company in a bid to foster togetherness and united participation, appreciate workers correctly, and many more. Employee retention is a very important concern for employers, especially during seasons like this when the unemployment rate is not so high as before and there is high competition for skilled employees and talents. Thus, no company wants to lose its best candidate or lose the ability to attract the right prospects for their business. A good retention practice or technique provides a very significant impact on the organizational performance level. Therefore, businesses that want to thrive and experience a good performance from their employees while the employees are not thinking about the exit will ensure that strategies and programs to keep the workers are in place. 

Why do employees leave a company?

Before diving into retention strategies, it’s important to have a glimpse of the reasons why workers tend to leave their job or end their contracts with an organization. A lot of reasons have been associated with the reasons why employees leave their jobs.  According to a study in 2018, about one-third of all the workers sampled in the study have plans to exit their current job within the next 365 days. It’s important to note that this study was carried out before the pandemic and if a study pre-Covid is as much as that, imagine what the situation has been like after covid. Nowadays, talents seek to work with employers that are ready to pay more, provide good working conditions, allow remote work options, etc. In satisfying their thirst and working towards their adventures, talents tend to exit their current job for better offers. Among the reasons that contribute to workers’ exit from an organization include;

• Search for a new challenge 
• Further their education 
• Marriage and Family 
• Distraction and lack of clearly established direction, mission goal, and vision 
• Relocation 
• Retirement 
• Unhappiness and unsatisfaction over the current job, staff, or work culture.
• Feeling irrelevant and useless
• Lack of recognition and appraisal 
• Feeling burnt out
• Rigidity in working condition 
• Lack of developmental opportunities 
• Inconsideration of work-life balance 
• Unfaithfulness in wages and salaries payment 
• Better work options or alternatives
• Undesirable workload
• Negative effects on health 
• Unhappiness and boredom
• Quest for change
• Quest for remote working option 
• Better job offers.

Best Retention Strategies 

Foster employees’ engagement techniques 

Research has shown that when workers are not well engaged or disengaged with their responsibilities, there is a high tendency that will spread their disengagement problems to other workers and thus, pose an impeding loss to your organization. With disengaged workers, productivity, morale, energy, zeal, and efficiency will reduce in the organization. Employees begin to get disengaged with their work when they start feeling rejected at work, not getting the support, love, and voice needed when their opinions do not matter anymore, and when other companies of the same level are doing better for their staff than their company, etc. In a recent survey in the United States, it was discovered that only about 21 percent of workers showed engagement with their work. The survey further explained that due to loss in productivity, disengaged workers cost organizations and society about 450 billion dollars every year.

Thus, employers need to come up with excellent engagement techniques for their organization. Every employer, HR manager, and the engagement team of any organization must always come up with dynamic, creative, and flexible ways to always engage their employees. The introduction of an end-to-end feedback approach and support system will help in getting staff to stay engaged in an organization. Allowing employees to influence decisions, make their voices heard, and make valuable contributions to the development of the organization is another approach that can be implemented. Other techniques such as performance reviews, continuous communication, appraisal, etc can be used to foster a sustainable engagement system in an organization. Nevertheless, it is a must that the approach used should be regularly reviewed for upgrades. 

Create an unbiased recognition and appraisal system 

Nobody sincerely wants to be in a toxic environment where their work and/or efforts are not appreciated. Similarly, nobody wants to be in a place where there is an appreciation framework but it is marred with biases and partiality. When an organization embodies this toxic trait, workers can’t feel engaged or contracted to the company. An ideal staff will want to leave a place where he is undervalued or underappreciated. According to a study a few years ago, it was discovered that appreciated and appraised employees always tend to work harder and stay longer on a job, but then, more than 80 percent of Americans feel unrecognized and unappreciated in their work. 

Thus, in a bid to rectify this issue, employers need to embrace a seamless recognition and appraisal system in their organization. Brandon Hall Group found that organizations that acknowledge their workers numerous times a month are forty-one percent more inclined to see a boosted worker retention and thirty-four percent more likely to experience an increased engagement. Therefore, employers need to start developing ways through which they can reward, recognize, and appraise their employees. Some strategies to use include: 

1. Prioritization of social recognition and monetary rewards
2. Continuous performance reviews and implementation of point supported ranking
3. Announcing rewards via a general company email, at pep talks, board meetings, on the company’s notice board, website, etc
4. Cultivating the art of celebrating every wins in every department and unit 
5. Recognizing team members that complete their milestones before the deadline.
6. Give certificates, use redeem points, give monetary values, bonuses, vacations, etc

Contribute to employees’ professional growth 

It has been discovered that there is a direct relationship between a company’s investment in their workers’ growth and their retention or turnover. Low investment in development leads to low retention while high investment in growth facilitates high retention of staff. Every company needs to make the professional growth of their staff a major priority. Employees should be enrolled and sponsored for conferences, courses, training, workshops, and seminars. They should be supported in furthering their education and learning new skills. Allow your staff to learn on the job, take on new projects, get mentored and supervised for bigger projects, trained for succession, etc. Employees that can benefit from the goodness of an organization will not want to leave. Investing in your workers will not only boost their retention but will enhance productivity and performance within your organization making them the best of the bests.

Offer excellent incentives and compensation packages 

If the reward for labor is appropriate wages and salaries, then why should I man work and he is not properly rewarded? Every worker that is not paid according to the value rendered or their worth tends to run away from that organization. Provision of the right incentives plus bonuses boosts the chances of an employee staying in an organization. 85% of employees tend to get motivated when incentives are offered. Compensation and benefits can be in many forms, among them are;

1. Competitive salary structures (your competitors’ salary must not be more than yours)
2. Scholarship programs
3. Fully-funded vacation and travel offers
4. Profit-sharing options
5. Special subscriptions such as TV, Internet, Gym, etc
6. Provision of free lunch and health packages, etc

Good working conditions and work culture 

Again, nobody wants to work in a toxic environment! The culture of an organization is very important in employees’ attraction and retention. A report by Glassdoor showed that about 8 out of every 10 candidates always evaluate an organization’s culture before considering an application to the organization. Once the working conditions and culture are bad, employees plan their exits immediately. You can’t expect a worker that is being overused, abused, underpaid, unprotected, lacking access to resources, etc to continue working with the organization. Even if there is no other option, they might prefer to be jobless than work in those kinds of organizations. Thus, every business owner must make nurturing a robust organizational culture will be a booster for your employees, enhance the increased customer experience, and facilitate a robust talent attraction. Good working conditions and working cultures may include;

1. Not working outside working hours
2. Respecting the lives and beliefs of your employees 
3. Providing breaks, appraisals, and incentives when needed
4. Working within the context of the employment agreement 
5. Easy flow communication and collaboration system 
6. Leading without authority 

Strong communication system 

Communication is a very important element in life and an organization. Employees need to communicate among themselves, with their bosses and supervisors, with their employers, etc. They need to communicate and understand milestones, tasks, projects, and many more. An employer or business owner that is willing to keep their employees for a very long time must break all the communication barriers between them. He must open up a communication channel or pipeline that will allow employees to convey their progress, ideas, and opinions anytime. Communication must be so easy, time-bound, positive, constructive, and delivered between all the sections of your business. Make a proactive connection with each worker regularly in a bid to get an understanding of their workload and job satisfaction. Furthermore, the use of collaboration and communication skills and tools will be of a great deal in fostering good communication and feedback. Cultivate the habit of having a one-on-one meeting with your employees, discuss and explain to them what they need to do, how they need to do what they need to do, the company’s short and long-term goals, etc.

Work-life Balance

Finally on our list, adopting a good work-life balance is one of the best ways of retaining workers in an organization. Every organization that promotes a flexible and dynamic balance system to the work-life and personal life of its employees is positioning itself to attract talents and retain its employees. Employers must ensure that they respect the personal life of their workers. You must be willing to provide breaks for your workers, respect their weekends, discourage working around the clock, allow them to spend quality time with their families, set restraints to work during rest or leave, provision of sufficient time to complete milestones, etc.

Achieve Employee Retention with WeHireGlobally

One of the best approaches to achieving good employee retention in your company is to partner with a Global PEO such as WeHireGlobally. WeHG provides you will the best employer of record solutions in the industry. We help you attract and hire the best talents for your organization. We work tirelessly to ensure that the employees are retained in your organization for a long period while staying compliant and not being subjected to risks. Our wide coverage in 150+ countries with some of the best professionals in the industry makes us a standout performer in ensuring a sustainable and robust retention rate for your organization.