Top 5 employee retention strategies; Employee retention refers to the effort businesses make to retain their current staff and limit the rate of turnover. Employee retention is essential to every business organization since onboarding and training new staff requires resources and time. It is estimated that employee replacement cost can range from at least one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. Also, retaining the best employees helps an organization to remain competitive and agile in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
One of the strategies of employee retention is encouraging time off. This is because employees working more hours experience more stress and anxiety than usual. The extra responsibilities of employees leave them feeling tired and burned out. Encouraging them to take vacations and use time off, even if it’s just a day to recharge increases their chances to stay in the organization.
Another way to increase the rate of retention is respecting employees’ time. Showing employees that you value their time conveys that you care about them and believe in fairness. Business organnizations should stop making assumptions that employees’ office hours are expanded because remote workers don’t have to commute. Saying things like “since we have more time now” shows a lack of awareness and respect of your employees’ time and may send a message that you’re taking advantage of the situation.
Thirdly, promoting work-life balance is an effective approach for employee retention. Many companies extol the virtues of work-life balance and support a culture that encourages and rewards this. Continually overworking employees is not conducive and leads to burnout. Encouraging staff to use their vacation time, and if overtime is necessary to wrap up a project, consider incentives to make the worker feel appreciated.
The other technique used to enhance retention is fostering positive work relationships and teams. Positive workplace relationships are essential for employee satisfaction, retention, teamwork, loyalty, and optimal productivity. Therefore, it is important for business organizations to create ways to foster collaboration, including occasional team-building experiences. Such activities help combat feelings of isolation and loneliness in remote workers. Also, team building activities such as virtually hosted game show competition between teams go a long way in helping promote retention.
Most importantly, providing competitive salaries and benefits increases the rate of employee retention. Pay, perks, and benefits matter. In fact, about 45% of employees who quit do that due to salary and benefits. Companies should thus evaluate their compensation philosophy and consider conducting a salary and benefits study to determine if you offer the same as other businesses in your industry and region. MLA