What are employee retention strategies?

Employee retention strategies are the efforts a company makes to hold onto its current staff. The employee retention capacity of any company directly determines its employee turnover and replacement needs. A high turnover means that employees spend limited time at the company after hiring before leaving. Effective employee retention strategies incorporate a wide range of programs and policies that make a particular company a more attractive employer, which enables them to attract and retain talented candidates.

Related: How to Conduct an Employee Evaluation

9 effective employee retention strategies

A high turnover rate can be harmful, expensive and inconvenient to your company. You can minimise your risk of losing valuable employees using the following strategies:

1. Hire the right people

Selecting top talent during the hiring process allows you to ensure that your company can perform better in the future. So set up your hiring processes to lure top performers. Mention or show them the benefits of working in your company throughout the hiring process to make them feel drawn to the company.

2. Advance your onboarding process

It’s often expensive to recruit and hire employees. Therefore, you don’t want to lose them during the first few months of working for you. You should have a reliable onboarding program that allows new employees to feel welcomed. This can include ensuring that new staff is not overburdened with work. Superb onboarding should be ingrained in your company culture to allow new employees to fit in quickly. As an employer, you should be involved in the entire process to ensure that new employees never feel unappreciated.

3. Have clear work expectations and company policies

It’s good to ensure that your employees understand their responsibilities and job duties at work. This can make them feel helpful at work. Therefore, prepare a concise company policy that outlines the responsibilities that each employee is tasked with. This includes giving equal tasks to every employee without overburdening some staff.

4. Provide growth opportunities for the employees

You can ensure that employees last longer in your company by showing that you are ready to invest in their professional development. This includes facilitating their education to acquire new skills and take on more senior roles in an organisation. The employees also develop a sense of loyalty when an employer invests in their career growth.

5. Practice efficient and open communication

Communication has a huge role to play in enhancing employee retention since it allows for more interaction and engagement. Employers who communicate efficiently with their staff have more mutual trust. Ensure that you keep an open mind and listen to their ideas, questions and concerns. This leaves them feeling appreciated and valued. You should strive to communicate to your employees about their performance and do so regularly to enhance performance. Maintaining an open company culture also makes the company more attractive to top talent.

6. Compensate fairly and offer benefits and perks

There are many creative ways you can offer promotions, admirable benefits and better pay, besides just raising salaries. You can look for ways to offer better health and wellness benefits by partnering with a health insurance company, for instance. You might also cover their health insurance plan to ensure that they are healthy enough to report to work. Consider giving staff extra holiday days or paid time off to re-energise and report back to work with more vigour.

Related: How to Hire Your First Employee

7. Equip your employees appropriately

Employees are more efficient when they are working in an enabling environment. You can streamline their work in many ways such as automating most of the mundane tasks like tracking time and record keeping. Automating managerial or HR tasks allows your company’s leaders to have more time to focus on managing employees. They can manage the employees more strategically and improve their productivity by focusing on issues like morale boosts, employee experience and employee engagement.

8. Reward stellar performance and celebrate wins

Create a culture of celebrating outstanding behaviour and various achievements that you want other employees to emulate. Celebrating milestones, whether by individuals or teams, makes employees feel valued and want to do better in the future. Don’t limit your celebrations to work-related experiences only. Your employees will value your presence or contribution to their weddings, birthday parties or when they have a baby.

9. Work-life balance

Workplace pressure can sometimes cause a lot of stress and when an employee cannot take it anymore they start looking for alternative employment. Overworked employees also tend to miss workdays more or make costly mistakes. They are more likely to share their frustrations with other people and portray your company in a negative light which could mean missing out on top talent in the future. This is why you need to lessen the burden and encourage your employees to take time off when necessary. This enables them to attend to personal obligations and spend time with their loved ones.