Employee retention is an absolutely critical concern for businesses of all sizes and industries.
High employee turnover can be costly and disruptive to operations, and it can also damage morale and team dynamics which, ultimately, can have an impact on how you do business.
As such, improving retention rates with watertight retention strategies is essential for business leaders who want to create a stable and productive workforce.
In this article, we will outline seven actionable tips that business leaders can use to improve their retention strategies and reduce employee turnover.
By implementing these strategies, organisations can reap significant benefits, including improved productivity, increased employee satisfaction, and reduced recruitment and training costs. So, let's dive into these retention strategy examples and discover how they can help your business retain its most valuable asset: its employees.
How to improve retention - our top tips
1. Focus on employee engagement
Engaged employees are more likely to stay with a company for the long term. It makes them feel heard and valued in their organisation and it can provide you as a leader with actionable solutions to issues you may not have otherwise been aware of.
Business leaders and HR professionals should focus on creating a culture of engagement by offering opportunities for growth and development, recognising achievements, and encouraging open communication with staff.
Engagement as a retention strategy is incredibly powerful and can show your employees you care about them and their contributions to your business.
2. Provide competitive benefits
Employees want to feel that their work is valued and that they are being compensated fairly for their efforts.
As such, you as a business leader should conduct regular salary benchmarking reviews, to ensure you’re offering a competitive rate that keeps the best talent within your organisation.
It’s not always about money either. You can also look at providing competitive benefits packages as part of your retention strategies too. This could involve things like cycle to work schemes, blanket days and access to mental health support services.
It shows you’re willing to go the extra mile to support your employees and provide them with a better work life balance too. Which brings us on to our next point…
3. Offer a strong work-life balance
Providing employees with flexible schedules, remote work options, and generous time off policies can go a long way in improving employee retention.
When employees feel that they have a healthy work-life balance, they are more likely to stay with the company for the long term.
This approach can help to support employees with a good sense of wellbeing and, as our recent whitepaper on the 4 Day Work Week outlines, a competitive work life balance can reduce stress, burnout and make you more desirable as an employer too.
4. Provide opportunities for career growth
All productive, valuable employees want to feel that they are progressing in their careers and that they have opportunities for advancement. And, these are the exact people you want to keep in your business to promote growth overall.
As such, you should endeavour to offer opportunities for career growth through training, mentorship, and promotion paths.
Ensure your team leaders are on board with reviewing staff performance and regularly review where individuals could be in a position to develop and grow within the company.
5. Foster a positive company culture
A positive company culture can make employees feel valued, supported, and engaged and is an incredibly influential part of any strong retention strategy. You as a business leader, along with your HR team should work hard to foster a culture of positivity, inclusivity, and teamwork, and identify and resolve any issues in the culture.
Culture can have a massive impact on staff morale, and can often be a game changer in whether employees want to continue to work in a certain environment. And, quite often, the culture is influenced from the top down.
As such, it’s up to you as the leader to ensure you have a clear understanding of what you want your culture to be, and ensure your mission and values are aligned with this too.
6. Recognise and reward employees
Recognition can be incredibly important to employees, in making them feel that their contribution is valued within a business. We all know how disheartening and damaging it can be to put in all the hours and effort without even a thanks to show for it.
While salary is an important indicator of how valued an employee is and a reflection of their contribution, a simple recognition and reward scheme in addition to this can be a very powerful retention strategy.
Business leaders and HR professionals should regularly recognise and reward employees for their achievements, whether through bonuses, promotions, employee of the month schemes or other incentives.
7. Conduct exit interviews
It’s always difficult when employees leave your company, however this can be seen as a valuable opportunity to understand what led them to leave in the first place.
Conducting exit interviews can provide you with valuable insights into the reasons why employees leave and can help you identify areas to improve your retention strategies in the future.
Work with your HR department to conduct exit interviews whenever a person leaves your organisation and identify patterns and themes that could indicate an issue that needs addressing.
For more insight and depth on developing strong retention strategies for your business, download our free 21 page Whitepaper ‘The Ultimate Employee Retention Guide’. We’ve included more actionable tips on how to keep the best talent in your organisation, and highlighted key themes that might tell you whether or not you need to re-address your approach to retention.
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