How to Improve Talent Retention within Your Business

At the height of the pandemic, millions of employees left their jobs, causing a talent shortage for companies across the globe.?

Coined “The Great Resignation”, this mass job exodus continues in early 2022. In February, job opportunities and resignations in the US remained at record-high levels , with 11.3 million job openings and lay-offs at only 0.9% – a near-historic low.

How Loss of Talent Hurts Businesses

When employee turnover is high and job openings go unfilled, companies suffer. Of course, there is the obvious financial impact to an organization, but the effects are more than economic:

Low morale: High turnover causes a lack of unity within organizations, leading employees to low rates of job satisfaction.

Inefficient use of time: When talent leaves in droves, hiring and onboarding new employees can cost organizations one of their most precious resources – time.?

Reduction in productivity: When employees leave without transferring knowledge to other team members, it hinders progress. More experienced employees neglect their primary responsibilities to ensure new team members are up to speed, leading to low productivity.

Business continuity: When job positions are unfilled, it can disrupt a business’s ‘flow’. Employees find it difficult to achieve their goals and to make progress – another cause of low employee morale.?

How Growing Organizations Can Retain Talent

Smaller organizations have less resources to offer such as comprehensive benefits packages, meaning they often feel disadvantaged when competing against larger companies.?

Yet, small to midsize businesses have some distinct advantages over larger ones: they tend to listen more closely to their employees; they better understand what motivates their teams; and they face fewer obstacles when shaping culture for talent retention.

As the leader of a growing company, try asking yourself these questions:?

• Does my organization have a strong sense of culture and community??
• Is what I offer to employees aligned with what they want?
• Am I clearly defining roles and responsibilities within my organization??
• Am I providing employees with a clear path for career progression and growth by providing feedback regularly and transparently??
• Does the work of the company reinforce my business’s core values and align with my strategic vision?
• Am I looking at different ways to celebrate team members’ successes?
• Is my business inclusive of the diversity of our team members?

Investing in Your Team

At SUMMi7, we worked with a fast-growing company that needed to revisit their structure, their frequency of communication, and their processes for promoting talent among leaders and employees.

We emphasized to this business’s leadership that investing in the growth of their people is just as important as investing in the growth of the company.

“Employees are a long-term investment that pays off with a foundation that seamlessly scales with the company.”?

Through one of SUMMi7’s strategy-to-action workshops, the company’s leaders learned to build routines that engaged employees and managed change into their management cadence. Moreover, they initiated a continuous improvement program based on Lean Six Sigma methodologies to provide a common language and set of tools for employees throughout the business to engage in shaping their work. By doing so, they were able to help team members grow and adapt to the business’s changing needs.

Create a Culture that Makes Employees Want to Stay

If your employees aren’t connected with the vision and mission of your company, they are likely to seek more rewarding opportunities. As such, you should ask yourself these questions:?

• Are the changing needs of my business outpacing the skills of my team?
• Is high turnover making it impossible for employees to keep up??
• Is my finger on the pulse of employee morale?

The good news is that you can address these issues, but you need to take a step back and evaluate your current culture and learning environment, making a long-term commitment to addressing employee engagement.

The working environment and culture employees seek is evolving, and talent leaders need to create a ‘human-centric’ culture. Flexibility and a focus on employee well-being are essential to attracting and retaining talent. For example, according to the LinkedIn Global Talent Trends report, job listings that mention the culture of the company receive 67% more engagement from applicants.

Improving Employee Well-Being

Nowadays, more employees are seeking remote or hybrid job opportunities, leading companies to find creative ways to provide their employees with a better work–life balance.?

For example, companies are giving select Fridays off during the month, resulting in an increase in productivity . Moreover, flexibility around employee schedules also increased trust in leadership and improved employee morale. Remember, traditional productivity success metrics (e.g. how many hours an employee works) are outdated, meaning the focus needs to shift to employees’ results and their impact on the business.

As a business leader, you can try creating an immersive leadership style through which managers are encouraged and empowered to engage with employees in meaningful ways. Remember, immersive leaders maintain trust, authenticity, and consistency by:?

• Understanding their own leadership style, belief system, and personal inspiration to help build authentic connections with employees and peers.
• Exhibiting vulnerability to create an environment in which leaders are approachable and employees can raise and address issues early.
• Communicating coherently with an overall strategy, purpose-driven values, and clarity on how they prioritize their resources.

So, what’s the main takeaway? Simply put, listen to your employees, create open-ended lines of communication and have the flexibility to create a work environment in which employees want to stay and thrive.

Engage Your Employees at Every Stage of Your Business Growth Journey

Learn strategies and tactics for keeping your teams aligned and involved in scaling your business.

For a limited time, please contact us for a complimentary copy of Eric’s book The Frontline CEO: Turn Employees Into Decision Makers Who Innovate Solutions, Win Customers, and Boost Profits, which recently was recognized with an Axiom Business Book Award .

“SUMMi7 has come in and made us really think about what deficiencies and things that are just taking too long to do. We’ve been able to put these process improvements into place and you can see a huge difference in the way the ownership is communicating with management and all team members. We get to hear about the vision of where we’re going and it’s very motivating and uplifting, and you just want to grow with this company.”

– Health Tech Company Director