Employee retention is a key metric that every organization needs to track. It takes time and money to bring talent to your organization, and you don’t want these resources to go to waste. The lower your employee retention rate, the more time you have to spend finding new employees, training them, and getting them up to speed. If your employee retention rate is lower than you’d like, below are some simple strategies you can use to give it a boost.
Fix Your Onboarding Process
A good place to start is where your employees start with your company – that is, the onboarding process. Many employees who leave an organization do so within the first few weeks of employment. While there are several factors that could cause this, one of the most prominent is a poor onboarding process. If your employees don’t receive the training or resources they need to perform well during onboarding, they are more likely to become overwhelmed in those early days and leave your organization.
Take the time to review your current onboarding process. Talk to your current employees about their onboarding experience and if there is anything they wish they had during that time. Your organization spends time and resources hiring the right talent, and you don’t want that to go to waste by not providing proper onboarding.
Recognize Accomplishments
Another common reason that people leave an organization is that they don’t feel appreciated. Everyone wants to feel like their work matters and is appreciated by those around them. If employees feel like they are working hard but it’s going unnoticed, they may search for another job that appreciates them.
Recognizing your employees’ accomplishments is one way to show you appreciate their hard work. Recognition can take on several forms, whether it’s a small bonus, a gift, or even just a company-wide email congratulating the employee. Another option is to create some awards for special accomplishments. You can grab some custom trophies from Edco.com and congratulate employees on accomplishments like generating the most sales, having the best customer service rating, or working for your organization for a certain amount of years.
Reduce Time-Wasting Tasks
Next, people want to perform jobs that are worthwhile. If an employee spends their day performing tasks that are redundant or menial, they may soon become unfulfilled and search for a more challenging job. A good way to keep your team stimulated while also maximizing their time is by reducing the number of time-wasting tasks.
Perform a review of how your employees spend their days. Look for tasks that take up a large amount of time relative to their importance. For instance, you may find that some employees spend a lot of time in meetings that could easily be covered by emails. Or maybe there are some repetitive tasks that automation software could handle for them. The more time your employees spend on meaningful work, the more likely they are to stay within your organization.
Offer Competitive Salary and Benefits
A big factor for any employee is their pay. Everyone wants to earn a competitive salary that justifies spending their time at work. One of the most common reasons that employees leave for another organization is simply that the other company can pay more.
Perform a compensation analysis and see how it compares to employees of other organizations. When necessary, provide raises to ensure your pay remains similar to others in the area. If your organization can’t afford higher salaries, look to provide other benefits to compensate. For instance, you can offer more vacation days, a better healthcare package, or better retirement investments compared to your competition.
Gather and Implement Employee Feedback
Finally, it’s a good idea to regularly seek feedback from your employees on how your organization can improve. Talk to your team about what changes they want to see and how you can make their jobs better. In many cases, your employees will have suggestions that you hadn’t thought of.
Gathering and implementing employee feedback has a few benefits. First, it shows your employees that you care about their experience and are willing to improve things on their behalf. Second, it identifies problems within your organization that, when improved, can boost productivity or employee satisfaction throughout your organization.
For example, an employee may point out that the current system for sharing files or communicating among teams is inefficient. Since you’re not directly involved with this team, you may not have been aware of the issues. By implementing new software, you can improve productivity for every team and make the workday a little less frustrating for all.
Start Improving Employee Retention Today
As you can see, it doesn’t take a lot to start improving your employee retention rate. Simple things like recognizing hard work, implementing some new tools, and asking for feedback can go a long way. Start implementing some of these strategies today, and before long, you should notice that your employees are happier and remain with your organization longer.
