Retention in the modern workplace!

Recent years have seen a significant rise in the number of workplaces that embrace remote and hybrid work styles. By breaking down the barriers between work and home, people are finding new ways to connect with their colleagues and build their careers.?

Leaders across many industries have dedicated substantial amounts of time, energy, and financial resources to make these modes of working more effective and inspiring. While some social media posts may convey a boost in productivity, it's important to remember these are just statistics – and only represents a narrow slice of an employee's day-to-day experience.? Simultaneously, essential efforts have helped employees adapt and achieve surprising performances.?

Several strategies can be implemented in the modern workplace to promote retention and improve employee engagement.?

1. Offering opportunities for professional development and growth: An organization's employees are more likely to stay if they feel that they are learning and advancing their skills.
2. Positive work culture and a supportive work environment can go a long way in promoting retention, as employees who feel valued and supported are more likely to stay with a company.
3. Engaging employees with a sense of purpose and meaning in their work: Employees are more likely to be engaged and committed when they feel they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.
4. Providing employees with the opportunity to maintain a healthy work-life balance can help to reduce burnout and promote retention.
5. Offering flexible work arrangements: Providing employees with the option to work flexible hours or from home can improve work-life balance and increase job satisfaction, leading to higher retention rates.

Purpose - The purpose is to reframe the traditional approach to human resource management that better fits the modern workplace and enables the empowerment and engagement that organizations so desperately seek.?

The new multi-generational workplace demands a new way of thinking about HRM. Putting the employee's total experience at the center produces a very different approach, beyond increasing perks and engaging the employee in the workplace.

Design Approach - Employee experience, or the employee's perception of his/her relationship with an organization, can be viewed as a cohesive whole. When this approach is applied to human resource management it becomes strategic in nature and engages employees by providing them with meaningful experiences.

Findings - More than rewards and perks are needed to engage employees. Employers must understand each employee's needs, wants, and desires well enough to design meaningful experiences for them that go far beyond what usually is offered in the workplace.

The new leadership paradigm must go beyond traditional methods and include holistic thinking, and intangible aspects of organizational life, use tools to make them tangible (experiment), and build solutions organically while recognizing that process is just as important—if not more so.

Value - Although organizations recognize a need to change and engage employees, they struggle with making the transition. Many approaches to engagement and retention are based on old ways of thinking that do not apply in today's workplace. Design thinking has been applied successfully to customer and user experience; now it's being used for employee experience and it is the way to move forward.

Overall, implementing these strategies can help promote retention and improve employee engagement in the modern workplace.

- Kajal Sabherwal