Employee retention: How you can succeed while others struggle

Welcome to the first monthly edition of The Employee Voice, where we'll be sharing our top tips, key insights, valuable resources and exclusive insights from the frontline of employee engagement. We're glad you're here!

If this is your first step towards improving the working lives of your people, you can learn more about what WorkBuzz does and how we help organisations just like yours gain and retain their talent here.

In this edition, we're going to focus on retention – a pivotal concern for HR and people leaders working to strengthen their teams for lasting success.

But why does employee retention pose such an issue? Put simply, losing talent puts a huge strain on productivity, where the search to replace employees costs both time and money.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) it costs six to nine months’ salary on average to replace a salaried employee.

Having staff leave not only messes up how things get done, but it costs more to find and train new people (during which time other employees will have to pick up the slack), and you lose all that strong organisational knowledge built up over time.

So, what's the solution?

Sharpening up your employee retention plan.

6 tips to improve retention and recruitment for your organisation

1. Embed regular employee listening and feedback

Elevating your employee listening strategy will help your organisation understand what’s happening within the workforce, and as a result, any issues can be actioned, and the employee experience can ultimately be improved.

However, it’s important the techniques you implement are undertaken on a regular basis. Many things can happen in the space of a year, a quarter, or even a month, so relying on a particular approach that you only relay to staff annually will not be reflective of how they feel at the current time.

In fact, you will be greatly limiting the opportunity to identify issues your people may have, and you will be left unable to action them efficiently, or even at all. By implementing regular employee listening and taking the time to take on board feedback, you’ll be able to make any changes before it’s too late.

2. Build a robust onboarding process

First impressions are everything – especially in business – and particularly for new employees. A great and lasting first impression could just be the difference between a successful working relationship with longevity, and a short-lived, disappointing professional experience.

It’s important to note the impression you give off to your new hire goes beyond their first day though, as according to a study by Jobvite,?31% of workers tend to leave their job within the first 6 months. So, to improve retention and recruitment at your organisation, a well thought through?onboarding process?is critical.

A well-established onboarding process comes as a sign that your organisation wants to get the best out of its teams, making employees feel more welcomed and valued. This will help new individuals become more easily settled in their role, encouraging them to stay, and therefore reducing the amount of money and time spent on new hires.

Read our 6 expert tips around how to successfully onboard new hires and keep them engaged in the below article.

3. Take a look at your leadership team

Based on WorkBuzz survey data, employee satisfaction regarding leadership has dropped by a staggering 8% in the past four years. The turmoil of the previous few years accelerated many changes within the world of work, leaving some failing to keep up and address new demands.

But change?needs?to start from the top.

To make sure your organisation stands a good chance at improving retention and recruitment, it’s essential your stakeholders are openly listening to what it is staff want, addressing or solving these issues, and meeting employee needs.

Having understanding and trustworthy members on your leadership team will, in-turn, improve your work culture, engage your workforce, and instil both motivation and inspiration amongst staff.

Read our eBook, Steering your Leadership Teams: A how to Guide for HR,?here, and continue reading this article for tip 4, 5 & 6 here.

One size doesn't fit all

The above article looked at retaining employees as a whole, but what about those harder-to-reach people who don't work behind a computer?

With 80% of the global workforce classified as deskless, the need to engage with all types of workers regardless of location is vital to retain and attract talent – and to drive a culture of performance and belonging.

"Nurses, delivery drivers, construction workers, shop-floor staff, front-of-house employees, cleaners, handymen. The list goes on. These people are the ‘face’ of almost every organisation you can think of, the everyday heroes, the most human touchpoint, and the ones who keep everything moving," says Steven Frost , WorkBuzz CEO.

"Deskless workers are hugely important, however, they are often undervalued, where it's been found that just?1%?of business software is designed with them in mind, despite?78%?of deskless employees saying technology is an important factor when deciding on which job to take."

There are a number of different engagement drivers that affect the employee experience as a whole, including but not limited to: purpose, leadership, growth, teamwork, flexible working and diversity and inclusion, and it's critical to tap into each of these drivers and look at engagement through the lens of both parties (desk-based and deskless) to dramatically improve your retention rates.

"Your deskless workers face challenges that are really quite removed traditional office employees, that the first nature of their work means they can face a lack of internal communications, making it much harder for them to stay connected and to keep up to date with the latest information you want them to have." - Neil Hayward

Click here for further tips around how to retain your deskless employees, with insights from Neil Hayward, ex-FTSE 100 HR Director, Executive Director and Board Advisor.

Our latest eBook, How to develop an employee retention strategy for your deskless workforce, also goes though 6 actionable steps you can take to retain your deskless employees. Download it here.

Remember, your workplace culture plays a big part in whether employees choose to stay or go

The only sustainable way to win your talent over is by creating strong workplace cultures that are powered by a great employee experience. In fact, in our research for last year's State of Employee Engagement report, culture was ranked as the most effective lever to attract talent. And this trumped offering higher salaries or opportunities for career advancement.

So, how can you build better workplace cultures through the employee experience?

There are plenty of opportunities to power workplace cultures through the employee experience at every stage of the employee lifecycle. As a start, ask the following questions of your organisation which can form the basis for planning and designing your desired employee experience:

• Attraction?– Are you highlighting the best of the company and its culture to attract the best candidates? Do you have a strong, intentional employer brand and employee value proposition (EVP)?
• Recruitment?– What is the current candidate experience and is it fair and transparent? Does the recruitment process produce the best employees for the roles advertised?
• Onboarding?– How do you enable and empower new starters to deliver? Are you providing them with the tools and skills to be able to do the job with clear expectations? How do you affirm the individual’s decision to join the organisation?
• Connection?– Organisations can’t drive engagement; it is a choice. So how can your organisation create an environment where people feel that they belong? How can you understand how individual employees contribute to the end goals and feel part of something where they are willing to contribute more than is asked of them?
• Development?– Does your organisation offer development opportunities, career paths and personal growth?
• Perform?– Do leaders ensure that all employees are supported and are able to perform at their best?
• Life events?– How do you manage and support employees through life events? This can be from personal events that may impact their mental health, to internal, corporate events such as promotion or greater people management responsibilities.
• Exit?– Why do employees leave? Does the off-boarding process create a positive experience where alumni may choose to return at a later date?

Continue reading this article here for further tips around how to build a better workplace culture, including paying attention to the moments that matter.

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