Employee retention is a critical factor in an enterprise’s success. Without engaged and happy employees, it is impossible to build a strong company culture that will attract new talent and retain current employees. Many tools, objectives, practices, processes, and programs are available to help your enterprise keep its employees. The best way to find out which ones work best for your enterprise is by conducting a survey. You can discover what motivates your employees, what they like about their jobs, and how they feel about it overall.
Employee engagement strategies should be implemented at all levels of an enterprise to be effective. The first step is understanding why employee retention is essential for your business. Then decide on a strategy that works best for your company culture and goals, whether through surveys or focus groups or interviews with key leaders or managers within your enterprise. This article explores proven employee retention strategies that you can leverage in your enterprise to drive engagement and decrease employee attrition.
Use a survey as an Employee Retention Strategy
Surveys are an integral part of an employee engagement strategy. They provide an easy way to get feedback from employees about what they like and don’t like about working with your enterprise. Surveys can also help identify areas where there may be room for improvement in how the company communicates with its employees. This allows you to address potential issues before they become overwhelming and shows your employees that their complaints are not only heard but actively worked on so there is a resolution.
Retaining good workers is best done through understanding what motivates each employee and adjusting your management style accordingly so everyone feels valued and respected at work, regardless of whether they’re working hard. It could mean providing incentives for higher productivity on projects if necessary; however, it could also mean recognizing someone’s efforts even if they aren’t working at full capacity. Employee engagement surveys will inform you how to respond individually to all of your employees so that they feel noticed and are motivated to keep working in your enterprise.
Ensure Effective Communication and Fair Treatment
Effective communication is a must to keep employees engaged with their jobs and companies. By providing regular updates about what’s going on within your enterprise, you can help employees feel more connected. This, in turn, makes them more invested in the enterprise’s success as a whole. You should also make sure that everyone knows their role within the enterprise so they understand how their efforts contribute to reaching organizational goals.
Poor management is one of the driving factors of employee attrition. On the other hand, a healthy management style can create a positive environment where everyone is treated equally irrespective of gender or race, a technique that will garner your employees’ trust. Encourage open and direct communication, where your employees look toward managers for guidance rather than view them with apprehension and fear.
Offer Fair Compensation and Growth Opportunities
How do you attract and retain the strongest talent from the pool? One way would be by reassessing your employee wages based on industry standards. Employees are happiest when they receive clarity and transparency about your pay structure. They know that you don’t shy away from bonuses or wage increases if your employee has demonstrated that their value is deserving of a raise.
For many enterprises, policies about the frequency and nature of promotions and other contributing factors impact whether they can offer promotions. Promotions are an important means by which employee engagement can be maintained and fostered, but failing to provide growth often results in talented employees who have become disengaged and disillusioned and seeking employment elsewhere. Good employees want to grow within an enterprise and are motivated by promotions and the challenge of handling more responsibilities. You can consider a dual-track career path to prevent employee attrition due to a lack of growth opportunities instead of offering growth only in managerial positions. Allowing your employees to move up the career ladder without managing people will help you retain top talent that may not necessarily include people management skills. It can be a lateral move to tap into employees’ talent in a new direction.
Hire based on your Enterprise’s Values
Employees want to feel proud of your enterprise’s brand and what it stands for. Enterprises increasingly need to uphold accountable ethical values with new generations of employees. The behavior of your enterprise should be enough to influence your employees and inspire them every day at every moment. It should be enough to show your employees that your enterprise is capable of more than just profits. Engaging and loving your customers equally well is the foundation of company growth because customer loyalty will translate into labor loyalty. In several cases, employees have refused lucrative opportunities due to misalignments with an enterprise’s values and broader vision.
Your onboarding process should be straightforward in outlining the roles and responsibilities expected of an employee and describe the broader vision of your enterprise. Hiring employees that are closely aligned with your mission and values is more likely to result in loyal and motivated employees who will help you realize your vision. While skills are vital to a role, hiring based on personality and alignment to your enterprise is more effective in the long run.
Offer Flexible Hours and Remote Work Opportunities
The rise of the remote worker means traditional office work and commuting are no longer the required norm, resulting in happier and better-motivated employees. In the wake of the global pandemic, several employees favor remote work. Not providing flexible work hours or the ability to work from home is an automatic deterrent that will cause you to lose out on talented employees.
Ensure your enterprise can accommodate the needs of your employees and offer flexible hours, as this is a significant contributor to employee retention. Statistics show that enterprises that can offer remote work and flexible hours have as much as a 25% lower turnover rate than enterprises with physical offices and fixed work hours.
Conclusion
Employee retention and reduced attrition rates can be critical factors to business success. It’s been proven several times over that when you keep employees engaged, they are more productive and therefore more profitable to your organization. Leveraging some of the proven employee retention strategies mentioned in this article will lower your turnover rates and increase employee retention.