How to Retain Your Best Employees

Wednesday, 4th Mar, 2020

Recruiting the best employees and keeping the best employees really matters, especially if you operate in a stiff and highly competitive industry. Job prospects for your best employees are expanding at an astonishing rate and you will need to retain your talented employees if you intend to compete toe-to-toe with your closest competitors.

 

A Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) press release revealed the answer to the question of what people plan to do whenever job markets rebound. The majority of the Human Resource (HR) professionals and managers surveyed agreed that turnover will rise significantly whenever the job market improves and show signs of opportunity.

 

The survey was produced by SHRM and "CareerJournal.com," the free, executive career site of "The Wall Street Journal," two of HR practitioners' favorite sites. The survey results include responses from 451 HR professionals and 300 managerial or executive employees.

 

Employees cited the following three top reasons they would begin searching for a new job:

•  53 percent seek better compensation and benefits.
•  35 percent cited dissatisfaction with potential career development.
•  32 percent said they were ready for a new experience.
 

HR professionals were asked which programs or policies they use currently to help retain employees. The following three are the most common programs employers are using to retain employees:

•  62 percent provide training/tuition reimbursement.
•  60 percent offer competitive vacation and holiday benefits.
•  59 percent offer competitive salaries.
 

In addition to three retention tips offered by HR professionals in the SHRM-"CareerJournal.com" survey, competitive salary, competitive vacation and holidays and tuition reimbursement, these are your key retention strategies.

 

(If you think they read like the Golden Rule, you're right they do.) And, they're also common-sense, basic but incredibly hard to find in organizations today.

 

How to Retain Your Best Employees

 

1.  Select the right people in the first place through behavior-based testing and competency screening. The right person, in the right seat, on the right bus is the starting point. Let Ascentech cover this for you.

2.  Offer an attractive, competitive, benefits package with components such as life insurance, disability insurance and flexible hours.

3.  Provide opportunities for people to share their knowledge via training sessions, presentations, mentoring others and team assignments.

4.  Demonstrate respect for employees at all times. Listen to them deeply; use their ideas; never ridicule or shame them.

5.  Offer performance feedback and praise good efforts and results.

6.  People want to enjoy their work. Make work fun. Engage and employ the special talents of each individual.

7.  Enable employees to balance work and life. Allow flexible starting times, core business hours and flexible ending times. (Yes, their me time is equally as important)

8.  Involve employees in decisions that affect their jobs and the overall direction of the company whenever possible.

9.  Recognize excellent performance, and especially, link pay to performance.

10.  Recognize and celebrate success. Mark their passage as important goals are achieved.

11.  Staff adequately so overtime is minimized for those who don't want it and people don't wear themselves out.

12.  Nurture and celebrate organization traditions. Sponsor an office party/get-together every now and then. Pick a monthly charity to help. Have an annual company dinner at a fancy hotel.

13.  Provide opportunities within the company for cross-training and career progression. People like to know that they have room for career movement.

14.  Provide the opportunity for career and personal growth through training and education, challenging assignments and more. Employees are hungry for lifelong learning.

15.   Communicate goals, roles, and responsibilities so people know what is expected and feel like part of the in-crowd.

16.  According to research by the Gallup organization, encourage employees to have good, even best, friends, at work.

 

CONCLUSION:

Now that you have the list that will help you retain your great employees, don’t forget that you can also outsource your HR functions to us.

If you treat your employees wonderfully, and they feel valued by you, you will never lose them. Why not work to make your organization one of the few, the best that truly honor and appreciate employees?