Employees are the Heart of the company; without them the company would cease to exist. The show goes on only when you have your employees. Ensuring that our employees have a long stint with our organization is definitely a task. An HR team’s goal is to ensure that the employee continues to be loyal and stays with the company as it is an effective way to reduce cost, save time and boost employee engagement. Employee retention is now a common practice irrespective of the size of the business; it’s considered as an excellent solution to addressing some of a company's problems.
Every ‘Success Driven’’ company now has an effective employee retention strategy that is mutually beneficial. Each industry has adopted strategies that work best for them. Employee retention is essential for a company’s development; the retention practices have found its place and importance in the growth of organizations. It has now become mandatory to do what it takes to keep your top talent and that includes exit interviews as well.
It is cost effective to invest in employee retention to retain the valued employees than to incur cost in recruitment. The companies that have employees with long tenure seem to be the ones that provide the best practices. Time is critical in a competitive industry and its important to consider the knowledge, skills and ability our employees bring in as opposed to the money we might consider as wasted.
Importance of Employee Retention
Employee Retention brings in benefits for the company. A business must retain its employees for as long as possible; it is important to measure employee retention rate along with other costs and budgets for the growth of the business.
- Substantial Increase in Productivity: A retained employee is usually highly engaged and tends to boost the overall productivity.
- Reduce Turnover Hassles: A new employee would take time to adjust to the work environment while retaining an employee would mean continuing the work with more vigor and commitment; this again is cost saving and quality productivity.
- Improve Morale: A retention practice would mean that the employee will consider continuing with the company by discussing his/her reasons for considering to move out; they too would not want to miss out on the opportunity to be retained. When you retain such an employee, the morale is high and productivity is more.
- Promotes Growth: Every employee would stay when they know that they would receive professional development and career growth. The longer their tenure with the company, the more experienced they are; this can be very useful and can benefit the company in many ways.
How to Improve Employee Retention?
Now that we are aware of the importance of employee retention, we’re definitely pondering on how to improve it. There are several strategies, methods, and practices that we as employers can put to practice to ensure that our employees wouldn’t leave our company. Here are some of the best practices we might want to consider.
- Right Culture - Most employees stay put when they are recognized and valued as a member of the company. Creating a culture that promotes positivity and bring them individual growth and success can help in not only employee retention buy also employee loyalty and commitment. Employees are very much human and want more than just a good paycheck and benefits; this is the sole reason why the culture of an organization impacts everything around the business including company reputation and branding.
- Benefits - The more we truly care for our employees, the more our employees will contribute to our success and truly show organizational commitment. Benefits make the organization stand out when an employee considers his/her options while choosing to continue with us. Benefits will contribute to a high rate of success in retaining an employee making it an important and a must category to pay attention to when considering a retention policy. ?Here are some benefits that we should consider giving to our valued employees:
- Medical Insurance
- Disability Insurance
- Life Insurance
- Retirement Benefits
- Day offs
- Double pay in holidays
- Recreational Activities
- Car Lease Policy
- Competitive Salary - Every talent comes with a price; when we reward an employee according to his/her abilities, skills and position we are hiring a talent. However, when we give them a slightly bigger paycheck, they feel valued and will show gratitude by way of better productivity, commitment and loyalty. One of the best ways to attract talented employees is definitely a higher paycheck. Overall, a competitive salary strategically places the company to demand a higher quality of work in exchange for higher wages, and this in turn results in higher productivity.
- Provide Training - Training our employees will ensure that the employee is in line with the company’s culture, work ethics and brand; it promotes their individual growth, development and grooming. Upskilling an employee and providing career growth can be very cost effective and productive for the company and has multiple benefits. It is a mutually beneficial initiative and will benefit both the employee and the company, and increase brand value as well along with employee retention.
Once we freeze on the strategies, executing it is what we need to tackle. Implementation requires good planning and research. The HR team has to collaborate with the management to understand their team’s activity and put together the strategies that can bring in the best results.
Benefits of Employee Retention
Businesses can benefit from retaining their employees in so many ways.
- Reduce overall cost - Replacing an employee can be a costly solution. It takes time to replace a single individual and could cost a business greatly. A strong employee retention policy can help reduce the cost. Retaining our good employees can boost our company’s revenue as well as improve engagement.
- Loyalty - A tenured employee tends to be a loyal employee and show organisational citizenship behavior. They believe in our business and walk an extra mile at demanding times. Good practices will result in a positive relation between the employee and the company. An employee who has achieved job satisfaction in our company is likely to support us and stand by us in most instances.
- Successful Brand and Reputation - Our employees are our brand ambassadors; they contribute to our reputation. The way we keep them is the way we earn our brand value and reputation, hence retaining and maintaining our employees is crucial in a competitive market or industry.
Employee retention strategy to reduce turnover is crucial to the success of any company; one has to embrace innovations and use technology to achieve this. Every company is looking for talented employees; the easiest way to stay above the competition is definitely not with the approach of hiring better talent but to benefit from your present employee’s skills, talents, knowledge and to invest in their potential which in turn will improve retention. Implement the best practices that will lead to your employees never wanting to leave.
