If Employees Are Abandoning Ship… Then Read This!

Summary: Retention strategies are key to reduce employee turnover, prevent attrition, increase retention, and foster employee engagement. Here I discuss some actionable employee retention ideas and tactics.

“Initiate the preservation process when your employees are still in love with your workplace and not when they are fed up and ready to leave”

Following my previous HR opinion blog on employee retention (Time to Stop Organisational ‘Brain-Drain’), HR colleagues have been telling me they are fine with the overall analysis of their employee feedback, but do struggle to act on those specific employee groups that show low ‘intention to stay’ in their organisations. So, I have been asked to share some specific tactics on how to boost employee retention, which I will do in this blog!

As previously discussed, all organisations are different, specific best practices that work in certain business environments may not work in others. For this reason, and to avoid misleading people, I will not focus on precise company examples, but on general tactical ideas that can be applied in any organisational setting.

Building on the seven drivers of retention that we discussed in my previous blog (see image below) I will present various generic / high-level tactical ideas to tackle each of them. As an HR professional, you will need to recycle and adapt these ideas for your own workplace challenges and specific business environment. Having said this, in some instances, you may need to completely change your organisational culture if you are to reduce employee turnover.

You may ask which of the above is the most relevant driver of retention for your organisation. As discussed, to uncover your specific key drivers of retention, you will need to further analyse your organisation’s employee survey data. You will have to organise various multiple regression analyses, for your whole organisation and specific groups of employees, to identify those areas that have the greatest impact on your employees’ ‘intention to stay’ levels.

When it comes to specific retention tactics and actions, these will need to be fine-tuned with the help of your own employees’ input. This approach will ensure your chosen interventions do work for ‘your’ people and organisation.

Consequently, I suggest you conduct employee ‘focus groups’ and ‘stay interviews’ to help you understand those concerns employees may have and for you to be able to formulate precise solutions to address each of them. It is their feedback that will help you uncover the exact retention schemes to be implemented in your organisation.

So, lets summarise some potential tactics for the seven drivers of retention that I propose.

1. FINE-TUNE YOUR RECRUITMENT & ONBOARDING EFFORTS

Rethink all your recruitment efforts - Find ways to attract candidates who will closely align with your culture and will stick with your organisation for the long-term, e.g. individuals who play team sports, have activities outside of work, or who are committed to volunteering activities.

Select individuals who are more likely to stay – You may want to avoid job-hoppers, look for candidates with longevity at their previous jobs who demonstrate loyalty, perseverance, and engagement.

Identify those who share your organisational aims – Select people who are aligned with the values, vision, and mission of your organisation.

Build critical mass for minority groups - Develop relationships with professional groups, higher education institutions, BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) associations, and other relevant societies to get a more diverse applicant pool.

Ensure an exceptional onboarding experience - Set up newcomers for success from the start. Make them feel comfortable and capable from day one. Teach them not only about the job but also about your culture and how they can contribute to and thrive in it.

Develop orientation programs - Keep all newcomers well-informed, clearly explain your internal policies, and your expectations of all employees from the beginning.

Install mentorship programs — Assign a mentor or a buddy to all newcomers. Pair new hires with seasoned employees. Allow them to learn the ropes from experienced high-performing employees. Make sure the mentor does not act like a supervisor. They are there to act as a sounding board and to welcome new hires to the organisation’s culture.

• Read more: Quick Guide to Building a Mind-Blowing EVP!

2. OFFER A COMPETITIVE BASE SALARY AND BENEFITS

Provide a competitive base salary - Do evaluate and adjust salaries regularly. Employees do not consider money the most important aspect of their work experience, but offering a competitive salary can help them feel their contributions are recognised and appreciated.

Offer employee stock ownership - By making employees become stakeholders, you allow them to feel more connected to your business and makes them more accountable for your organisation’s future growth.

Adjust all benefits - Draw up benefits packages that best suits your people’s needs e.g., company car, loan reimbursements, tuition reimbursement, education funding, discount schemes at various entities, gym/fitness privileges, commuter assistance, casual dress / dress down days, sick pay, health care insurance, optical/dental care, mental health days, pension schemes, childcare, bereavement leave, extra paid time off, sabbatical leave, remote work options / flexible working, paid parental leave…

Perks & Incentives - Here I list some perk ideas: office showers, comfortable relaxation zone, employee social club, birthday day off, office games room, ice cream or pizza Fridays, team town halls, bring your child to work days, books for employees, family picnic, team lunches, walking club, team workouts, volunteering time, decorating budget (for your team’s own work spaces), employee partner recognition (to thank them for being supportive), cultural lunch days (prepare a presentation or dish from your heritage country), office fruit bowls, laundry service… ?

• Read more: If Retaining Top Talent Is a Struggle… Then Read This!
• Read more: Ethical Pay in a Fair Society

3. IMPROVE YOUR LINE-MANAGERS’ PEOPLE SKILLS

Enhance manager-employee relationships - Line-managers need to form a closer personal connection with their direct reports. The best managers act as enablers and focus on getting the best out of their team. They are empathetic, optimistic, assertive, recognise employee value, and provide actionable feedback.

Forster trust and respect - Employees don’t want to feel diminished, unimportant, or undervalued in their workplaces and actively look for respect at their jobs. They will perform better when there is mutual trust with management. In this respect, coaching fosters mutual trust, making it feel like line-managers and their direct reports are on the same team.

Recognise employees - The gratitude of a manager does make a big impact. Do thank direct reports for their discretionary effort and link it to the organisation’s success. Ensure your managers reward efforts and not just results. Institute compelling recognition programs. Encourage peer-to-peer recognition (e.g., reward employees based on how much they have helped co-workers).

Celebrate milestones - Shine a light on notable achievements and seize the opportunity to mark the milestone together: finishing ahead of deadlines, celebrating work anniversaries, achieving business targets, etc. Make sure it is a meaningful and memorable moment for everyone.

Rethink performance reviews - Many employers are abandoning the annual performance review in favour of more frequent informal 1-2-1 meetings with team members.

• Read more: 8 Essential People Management Skills

4. EMPOWER EMPLOYEES / PROMOTE A CULTURE OF INNOVATION

Actively involve employees - No one wants to feel excluded. Encourage employee feedback. People want to feel they are playing a key role in helping the business achieve its objectives. When people feel their thoughts are not being heard, they assume the company has no interest in them.

Engage employees in CSR Programs – People value empathy. Especially younger employees believe in giving back to the community. Contributing to society and helping those in need are feel-good factors that inspires loyalty and engagement in your organisation.

Challenge your employees – Alter work responsibilities, involve employees in various tasks and give them a chance to work with other departments. Avoid doing the same thing day in and day out, push people out of their comfort zone. See failure as a learning opportunity, encourage a growth mindset.

Enable innovation - Give employees the resources and information they need to succeed. Promote formal rewards systems to incentivise generation of ideas and creativity. Set up innovation teams. Encourage risk-taking. Allow employees to work on any side projects of their interest that is linked to the main business.

• Read more: In Search of a ‘Culture of Innovation’
• Read more: Innovation: 25 pitfalls you must avoid

5. MANAGE INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

Nurture your corporate values - Reward people who act on your organisational values every day. These values should be meaningful and communicated in a way that all employees can internalise and understand.

Connect with your people - Organise regular ‘state of the business’ meetings, to be held monthly or quarterly, with rotating senior executives conducting the sessions. Update employees on the organisation’s business direction. They want to know what is going on with strategy, competition, the financials, and the general industry outlook. When employees feel informed, it helps them see how they are contributing to corporate objectives.

Manage change effectively - Forcing too much change can be very stressful and does affect employee retention. Do try to avoid sudden changes in the workplace. If your organisation is going through a big shift, keeping your team as informed as possible helps ease anxieties. Make big announcements either individually or in a group call or meeting and allow time for questions.

Encourage active dialogue - Make sure you proactively connect with each team member on a regular basis. Promote timely, constructive, and positive communication across the entire team, including on-site and remote employees. Create a workplace where employees are not afraid to express their opinions. Promote an ‘open-door policy’ where employees can come to you with ideas, questions, and concerns at any time.

Promote upward communications - Install communication systems that allow lower-level staff to directly express their views, requirements, ideas, and feelings to upper-level management.

Emphasise teamwork and Camaraderie - Promote teamwork by creating opportunities for collaboration, accommodating individuals’ personal backgrounds and work styles. Make sure all employees, regardless of their background or circumstance, feel fully included, valued, and accepted in their teams and in the wider organisation, without having to conform.

• Read more: Signs your workplace is stuck in ‘Communication Limbo’
• Read more: Foster Camaraderie to Build a Great Place to Work

6. PROMOTE EMPLOYEE WELLBEING

Clarify all your wellbeing offerings - Keeping all your employees fit (mentally, physically, and financially) is key for retaining employees. In your programme you need to consider all key dimensions of organisational wellbeing: meaningful work; mastery, capability and competence; relatedness and interpersonal relationships; autonomy and empowerment; mental and physical health; financial security; worklife balance; and the immediate work environment.

Detect and avoid burnout symptoms - Educate managers on how to identify signs of burnout and support people who might be under pressure. Encourage your people to use their holidays. Arrange fitness challenges, host webinars on the importance of sleep, or even have a nutritionist to talk on healthy eating habits. Ask your employees for feedback on what is causing burnout in your organisation and discuss ideas on how to prevent it.

Encourage a healthy work-life balance - Provide appropriate rest time for your employees. Make sure your they don't feel exhausted, overloaded, and inundated with work all the time. Empower employees to set boundaries. When late night or weekend work is absolutely necessary, do consider offering time-in-lieu to compensate.

Create flexible working arrangements - These can involve hybrid workplaces, compressed workweeks, flexitime, staggered work shifts (where employees do not arrive or leave the office at the same time) or maybe a partial telecommuting option. These can help relieve stress for your team and boost employee retention.

Authorise sabbatical programs - Employees can benefit a lot from sabbatical leaves that last no less than six weeks or more. Here employees get a chance to reenergise, relax, develop new skills, travel, spend quality time with their families, or simply work on some personal project they are passioned about.

Provide the right physical work environment - Create a clean and safe environment for your employees. Provide employees with the tools and equipment they need to do their jobs efficiently. The right infrastructure, systems and processes will free up their time by simplifying and automating tasks that are low value and repetitive.

• Read more: Creating a culture of ‘Wellbeing’
• Read more: Now is the Time for Worklife Balance!

7. ACCELERATE LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT

Encourage a learning culture - Make it a priority to invest in your people’s professional development. Design in-house training programs, give employees time to attend virtual conferences/industry events, provide tuition reimbursement or pay for continuing education.

Offer employees an opportunity to grow - Succession planning is a highly effective method for advancing professional development and building leadership skills among employees. Help employees understand their short and long-term goals and lay out a realistic plan for reaching those aspirations.

Promote internally - Utilise your existing employee talent pool to fill in job vacancies that arise instead of looking out for applicants.

Encourage horizontal development - Persuade employees to move sideways from one job to another, to gain the skills, experience and knowledge required to progress upwards within the organisation.

Diversify career advancement opportunities - There is a misconception in business culture that managing a team (the bigger the better) is the only way to advance one’s career. Do create a clear dual-track career path for people managers and also for expert individual contributors.

• Read more: 8 Steps to a Colossal Career

Although we agree these seven core drivers of retention will help increase job satisfaction and employee retention levels in your organisation, I am not saying you need to adopt every single one of them and all at once. Some of the retention ideas that I discuss in this blog may be difficult to roll out, so work at your own pace. Make sure you introduce those retention interventions that are manageable for you, your organisation, and employees.

I do recommend you re-evaluate your employee retention efforts regularly, stay current on market trends for salary and benefits, constantly validate best practices for developing an attractive workplace culture and ensure you boost strong manager-employee relations.

Also keep an eye on your actual employee retention rates on a quarterly basis and match it against your 'Intention to Stay' feedback. This linkage analysis will help you identify, predict, and address potential retention issues before they turn into engagement risks that lead into employee attrition and turnover.

Some Final Thoughts…

Keeping your current employees happy and job satisfaction high is a very smart employee retention strategy. Remember, you don't always need to pay more, you may just need to pay attention to alternative drivers of retention. Employees want their efforts and achievements to be recognised, they want to continuously learn, and they want to know that there are opportunities to grow within their current organisations. It is when they notice they cannot receive these things within their current role that they start looking elsewhere.

Nonetheless, despite all efforts, sometimes?letting go employees is inevitable; organisations must adapt and be prepared to lose top talent due to various internal and external factors. But at least, you should make their decision to leave you a little bit more difficult. And if those employees leave your organisation knowing that they were valued and supported, they will likely act as brand ambassadors by only having good things to say about your business and culture.

Thanks for reading my blog & your kind support. Were any of the insights provided of value to you? I would welcome your feedback - please do ‘Like’ or ‘Comment’ your experience on this subject in the space provided! -?Follow me on LinkedIn?for more articles and insights!

Disclaimer: The author is making this ‘Opinion Blog’ available in his personal effort to advance the understanding of best practices in workplace related matters. The author assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of this ‘Opinion Blog’ or for the results obtained from the use of the information provided. The information is provided on an ‘as is’ basis with no guarantees of completeness, accuracy, usefulness or timeliness and without any warranties of any kind whatsoever, express or implied. The views expressed are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of any entity whatsoever with which the author has been, is now, or is to be affiliated in the future.