Employee Retention Best Practices
Businesses are suffering from a wave of resignations and the migration of workers from one industry to another. Some have called this “The Great Resignation.” Unfortunately, the trend injures both the business and the customer as experienced employees walk out the door along with the institutional memory needed to operate a company successfully. The mass resignation results in business leaders struggling to fill positions and train new employees. The curve is steep, and the timeframe can damage the company’s profitability.
The answer, of course, is to keep the employees your business already has. In this best practice article, we’ll outline what some of the leaders in the marketplace are doing to keep their workforce intact.
Employee Resignation and Migration – A Global Challenge
A Work Institutes 2020 report demonstrates the reason that employees are leaving.?The?World Economic Forum?states that companies currently have a record number of open positions in the US. A study of 30,000 people across 31 countries by the WEF says that 41% of employees globally plan to leave their current jobs this year.
Forbes?quotes a Qaltrics report that says, “44% of US workers plan to look for a new job this year.“
?Dom Nicastro - writing for?reworked. co?- says, “If you’re an HR leader, this is time for a Super Bowl performance in terms of the employee-retention game: the?Tom Brady?kind of performance and not the?Scott Norwood?kind.”
A?Work Institutes 2020 report?demonstrates the reason that employees are leaving.??
?Our Top Best-Practice Pointers for Retaining Your Good Employees
1.??????Inspire
Define and champion the good that the company does. Your mission, vision, and service delivery should be put into inspirational language and framed in a way that current and prospective employees gravitate to you.
?2.????Customize
Customization enables higher efficiency instead of catering to “problematic” employees. The easier you make it for employees to be highly productive, the better they feel about their role. They will better understand the contributions they make to business success.
?3.?????Highlight
Take the time to show how company services help customers.??By emphasizing the positive impact of your goods/services, you make the employees feel they are a part of something contributing to society as a whole.
?4.?????Mentor
By building out a plan and process for mentorship, you help your employees grow in their personal and professional lives – driving feelings of forwarding momentum and developing confidence. This plan must be purposeful and practical.
?5.????Provide Resources and Processes
Many employees leave because managers don’t have the soft skills necessary to supervise and inspire them correctly. Seeking out and providing the resources needed for managers to develop soft skills like communication, adaptability, empathy, and creativity improves worker/supervisor relationships.
?6.????Provide a Public Roadmap
Companies by the thousands are navigating their way to a “new normal.” However, if employees feel like they are in the dark and decisions are being made behind closed doors without any input, they will not easily jump onboard your “new normal” train. Having a public roadmap to the “new normal” developed with rigorous input from the rank and file helps you avoid alienating employees.
?7.?????Cultivate Brand Awareness and Enthusiasm
Your brand is your “claim to fame.” Unfortunately, employees stuck in the minutia of their work lose sight of the bigger picture of the company’s brand. Build brand awareness within your firm by spending money outside your firm to create an emotionally positive brand image within the public at large. It’ll help both marketing efforts and worker attachment to your brand.
?8.????Publicly and Privately Recognize Contributions to the Whole
People want to be recognized for what they do. Whether large or small, your employees are proud of the contributions they make to your organization. Be effusive with your praise in public and private while consistently endeavoring not to leave anyone out of your congratulatory efforts.
?9.????Design the Job for the Person – Not the Person for the Job
Companies thrive when their employees can use skills they have worked hard to develop. Learn how to leverage the skillsets employees like to use the most. If an employee is excited about creating a YouTube strategy for the company, why have them on the assembly line putting widgets together? By building the job for the employee, you make the most of the people and resources at your disposal.
?10.??Trust
Work-from-home and work-from-anywhere scenarios have become increasingly popular and necessary over the past few years. It takes trust on the employer’s part to allow employees to work away from the office, but often, it is the best for all involved.
?11.???Get Some Advice
You don’t know what you don’t know. By bringing in outside help and advice, you can pinpoint why you may be failing at employee retention and shortcut your way to keeping more employees.
?12.?Make Mental Well-Being a Company Priority
The older model of company management in the industrial revolution focused on the health of the staff. Employees were allowed a few “sick days;” otherwise, they had to work unless they were physically incapable. Since those days, medicine has learned that the mind has a lot to do with our physical well-being. You ultimately lower your employee absentee rates and retain more employees by insisting on mental healthcare.
?13.?Get Rid of Bad Managers
If you’re going to retain employees, you must have good managers. These are people who know how to lead others. Some people just aren’t cut out to be in supervisory roles and push good employees out the door. By firing bad managers (or moving them into other positions), you help keep employees happy.
?14.?Lead with Kindness
“He’s all business” isn’t a good thing to be known for in corporate leadership anymore. The most effective company leaders are known for their kind attention. Getting to know your people allows more effective management and helps prevent employees from leaving your company.
?15.?Reclaim the Water Cooler Conversations
The pandemic pushed us into big, impersonal online video meetings where little was done to help employees get to know one another on a personal level. This lack of interpersonal interaction, if continued, will harm team collaboration and engender a sense of isolation in workers. Finding platforms for employees to socialize builds the rapport needed for a healthy and productive work environment.
16.?Figure Out What Drives the Individual Employee
McKinsey?claims companies can categorize employees into three primary purpose archetypes: “Free Spirit,” “Achiever,” and “Caregiver.” Understanding where your employee lands within these broad categories helps you help them be more satisfied within the scope of their responsibilities. See chart below.
17.??Develop a Listening Strategy
People don’t always want change, but they always want to be heard. President Andrew Jackson was known as the “People’s President.” As he was leaving office, he invited the public into the White House to help him eat a 1,400-pound block of cheese. Sure, it’s not about the cheese, but it is about inviting people into your space and being willing to listen.
18.?Be Rigorously Fair with Rewards, Compensation, and Recognition
Employees have a built-in “fairness” compass. It won’t take long for dissatisfaction to set in if equal pay or praise for similar work or accomplishments are not a part of company culture.
19.?Innovate
Some employees tend to be “first adopters.” If it’s new, they want to be the first to get it. By innovating within your product, process, and technology, you satisfy the innate desire of those “first adopter” individuals to be at the forefront of things.
?20. Be Flexible
Employees are people, and people have lives. A measure of flexibility on your part will demonstrate to them that they are valuable to you as individuals – not just as cogs in the machine.
?21.?Provide Growth Opportunities
Employees want to see a path for them to make progress for themselves and society at large. When you provide those growth opportunities across the board, they see a future with you and your company.
?22. Develop a Bank of Resources for Employees and Their Families
Often, employees move from job to job to fill a void in their lives. If a company builds a full-scale set of resources for their employees and employee families, that can minimize employees leaving the company. Meeting employees’ needs over and above their pay helps them realize how much they’re valued and appreciated by the leadership.
?In Conclusion:
Employee retention isn’t a simple, one-step process. Instead, it is like the cockpit of a Boing 727 – full of buttons, switches, knobs, and levers. Knowing what the controls do and how they impact employees will help retain them long-term.