Retaining your high-performing employees is one of the best ways to help your business grow, and this is why an employee retention plan is critical for companies. Hiring in business goes beyond just gathering good employees. If you cannot meet the staff expectations, the retention of employees will become a problem.
When hiring, consider the long term. There should be a solid employee retention policy for high-performing staff because what your business loses will become a gain for another business.
So, why exactly should you pay more attention to retaining your employees?
Why is employee retention important?
High employee turnover can negatively affect a firm, harm a company’s ability to provide good customer services and lead to higher costs associated with recruiting, selecting, and training new workers. Your business should focus on growth and high performance by understanding why your key employee is tempted to look somewhere else for better compensation or better work dynamics.
Many businesses fail to prioritise their employee retention policy, but those that do can attest to the benefits of doing that for critical areas of their business. An effective employee retention plan saves your business from a lot of negatives. According to human resources departments, it takes an average of about one to two years for a new employee to match the productivity of an old one. Losing your best employees means setting back your company’s productivity and growth by two years.
What to do when your key employees want to leave
When you notice your key employees showing signs of withdrawal and under-productivity, it's time to start thinking about how to retain staff and why they want to leave. When a key employee talks about leaving your company for good, having deep thoughts about the consequences for your business and that feeling of betrayal is almost inevitable.
If you tried to convince them to stay and it didn’t work, find out exactly why they are leaving. Is it the work situation? Is it for personal reasons? Is it for better pay? Their answer to all of these will not only help you better your employee retention plan, but it may also help you convince the good employee to stay.
Hence, it is essential to indicate the motives of departing employees and develop an effective employee retention plan. Consider these nine ways to keep your best employees on board when working on this plan.
1. Pay your best employees above-average salaries
Your business earns profits thanks to the hard work of your best employees, so upping their salaries should be easy. Paying above average is a great way to retain staff and keep them from looking outside the company for better incentives.
2. Allow employees to use their talents and skills
Employees want to feel that their contributions have an impact, and recognition is the best method of improving work motivation. Workers are more likely to resign if they feel disrespected and under-appreciated. Give your employees room to use their talents and skills.
Allocate enough resources to allow your employees to foster their development. An LMS platform can facilitate employee growth and provide your staff with the knowledge and skills they need for career success. It is important to encourage members of staff to master their current roles.
3. Maintain constant feedback
Have weekly update meetings, where employees can share their achievements for the week, challenges, expectations, and suggestions. Continued employee feedback will help the company stay on top of matters as they come up rather than leaving them unattended for too long.
4. Provide a platform for employees to speak their minds
A workplace with angry employees will always stunt productivity. Providing a platform for employees to express grievances, feelings, and other issues is a great way to foster better teamwork. Retaining employees comes easy when they feel heard and seen.
5. Identify and invest in high performers
Look out for the employees that give their best in every task, and invest in them. By sending these passionate employees to more training, certificate courses, conferences, and events to build their knowledge, you're doing your company good.
6. Offer the ability to grow
Good job prospects for employees. Staff members should clearly understand their career prospects and possibilities for promotion. If a talented employee is dissatisfied with their job role, review their performance objectives and establish new KPIs or transfer them to another department where they can pursue other opportunities within a company.
7. Implement a recognition and reward system
Making people feel valued is very important. It’s essential to inform staff of the company's vision, guiding principles, and goals – and how each employee is helping the business reach or sustain them. Watch how your employees respond to tasks and problems when they arise. Rewarding hard work and high performance fosters better productivity and increases employee motivation.
8. Ensure flexible work arrangements
It’s not so difficult to retain employees, meaning that when certain vital things are in place, running your business is a smooth process. As long as your best employees get the work done, you can give them some free time or work from home opportunities.
9. Give Your Employees Ownership and Autonomy
One of the key reasons why workers may eventually quit is because they are not properly equipped to do the job, and experienced managers do not have the time to train or re-train newcomers.
Сonclusion
Virtual training opportunities are currently one of the most successful ways to increase staff retention and reduce employee turnover. Retention is not based only on compensation issues, but properly organised staff incentive programmes, including custom learning paths, will help the company to keep its best employees from quitting.
My Learning Hub platform can help convert newcomers into well-educated and motivated staff. Book a free demo and implement best practices for training and retaining new employees.