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As an employer or manager, there are certain things that should be top of your priority list. Obviously, hitting goals and bottom line numbers is key. Right up there in terms of importance is employee turnover. The cost of constant, high rates of turnover are almost too many to count and it is almost impossible to put a dollar value on the overall cost of continually hiring and training.
A famous HR quote states “We can’t stop employees from leaving unless we have a plan to make them stay”. Brilliant! So what is your plan? Where do you begin to put in place a strategy or plan to keep your good people?
Employees need to feel respected and valued. They need to feel that they contribute and are recognized for the job they do, advance within the company, know where they fit and enjoy being at work. Simple to state but are your employees feeling this way?
If you are tired of seeing your top talent jumping ship to work with competitors, below 7 tips to reduce employee turnover. A plan, if you like to keep your talent and save yourself significant money and stress’
Be upfront and honest during your recruiting process
Have a look at the ads you post to attract potential talent. What message do your carefully crafted words send? Is the message accurate? Does the message accurately convey the company culture and the nature of the job? If the words are impressive and enticing, you had better make sure they reflect reality. If candidates do not figure this out during the hiring process, they surely will as soon as they start the job.
Your brand needs to be consistent over your social media marketing, your website, your literature and materials, your job postings and your mission and value statements. Do yours present a clear image? Is it the truth? Even if it, you then have to mirror the brand when you meet candidates. Ask yourself if you walk the walk based on the image that is out there.
Ask yourself how do you compensate your employees? Do they get the whole package?
Look at what you offer employees, both new and existing. Money is only part of it. It is impossible for most companies to simply keep increasing monetary compensation to keep employees on board. Even if the money is available, this will not stop great people leaving. Employees are looking for the whole package.
Forget about money for a minute. Why would people enjoy working with you and why would they stay? What do you offer by way of training and development? Look at the benefits and how flexible are they to help with the variable life styles of your employees? Try to come up with innovative ways to engage employees, develop them, include them, evaluate them and motivate them. Many of these ‘benefits’ do not cost money. They cost time and imagination, but the rewards are huge if employee retention is a result.
Who are your best employees? Do you know who they are and you trying to recruit more of the same kind of people?
Great question. You can probably think of the best one or two employees that you are lucky to have in your team. The ones who seem to go above and beyond, always hitting the mark and delivering what is needed and promised. These are the people who you would hate to lose and will do anything to keep.
Now that you have these individuals in mind, what are you doing to recruit similar talents? Find out what makes these people tick. What do they love about the job. Why do they achieve the things that they achieve on a daily basis? What do they enjoy? What do they wish they could change? The answers they give should essentially describe your company culture. These are the things you should be detailing in your job posts and digging for during your interview process. You now know why your top performers think your company is great. Now go and tell people and see who fits the bill.
Keep the best people motivated. Recognize and incentivize your team.
Everyone wants to feel that their work is appreciated and that they are respected for the job they do. How do you actually achieve this in the workplace? Recognition and reward must be a key part of your daily, weekly, monthly mentality. Tie in programs with achievable goals and celebrate in a big way when people hit the goals. It can be fun, prizes, awards or money towards creating a fun, success related environment.
Look at everyone in your team. Are they all eligible for some form of recognition? How are you being creative to make sur every employee in every role has a chance to have the spotlight shone their way. Make people feel that their efforts are noticed and appreciated. Once again, this often is achieved with minimal cost, but the effect on morale and the positive atmosphere that result are priceless. Never miss an opportunity to celebrate success.
Ask yourself if your employees have opportunities to advance within your company. Can they see real opportunity to succeed and grow their career?
When people are moving up, being promoted and advancing within an organization, it is incredibly positive. There is nothing like an internal promotion to highlight the culture and ‘grow from within’ mentality in your organization. Can employees see how they can move up?
List the workshops, training programs, seminars, education days, conferences, courses, mentoring assignments, succession meetings and use of online material that are in place within your organisation. Is it an impressive list? It should be. If an employee cannot see any of these in his or her future, then they probably don’t see much of a future in your organisation. If they can’t see their next step upwards with you, they will probably look elsewhere and take a step out of your door.
Encourage employee input
Once again, we come back to respect and a feeling that our work is recognized and appreciated. If you make the effort to collect genuine feedback and input from your employees, there will be several benefits. Firstly, your employees will feel that they can have some input into the direction of the company they work for. Secondly, there may be some brilliant ideas that you simply had not thought of. Thirdly, you will create an atmosphere which encourages creative thinking and honest feedback. Your employees will start to actively think about solutions to issues that you don’t even know about yet.
Again, be honest. What do you have in place to facilitate and encourage this? How do you gather feedback? How do people get involved in decision making processes? Do you have forums, discussion groups, one-on-one meetings arranged to let people talk? Are there suggestion boxes? And what do you do with these suggestions? Key questions. If you don’t have this in place, it is a huge, missed opportunity to improve your company and keep your employees happy.
Ask yourself how much fun it is to come to work?
The last thing anyone wants is to travel every day to a boring, dull, repetitive workplace where they interact with boring people. The energy and direction come from you as a leader. What are you doing to make people want to come to work?
Recognition and reward is a big part of this as we have discussed, but are you actually trying to have fun at work? Never underestimate the power of laughter and smiles. Social committees, group lunches, contests, trivia quizzes, organized events and company challenges. Just a few ideas. Creativity is the key. If you can’t think of ideas yourself, find people that will. It is a great way to keep employees energized and motivated. Work can be a fun place but still remain professional and goal oriented. You just have to work at it.
How honest were you with your answers as we worked our way through the seven great steps listed above? Being honest, appreciating and recognizing your employees, compensating in different and creative ways, valuing input from your team and having fun. The culture you create by following these steps will be a hard one to leave. Your retention rates will improve and the money and time you spend putting these steps in place will be nothing compared to the money and time lost by losing your best employees.
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