Whether you own a small business or a large one, retaining your best employees is critical to its success. In this competitive world, it’s getting harder and harder for the organizations retain their best employees. Employees are getting more career driven and organizations are in constant hassle to provide better opportunities than the others.
The cost of replacing an employee is much higher than one might expect. It includes the advertising cost for the position, interview and selection process, training of new employee and the loss of productivity while the position stays vacant. All that accumulated can result in a loss of more than 3 times the salary of that position.
It goes without saying that these costs cannot simply be ignored and you need to do something about it. You need to create an atmosphere that your employees would want to stay in.
Here are the top 4 ways you can retain your valuable employees and reduce employee turnover:
Clarify your expectations
You can’t blame your employees for their mistakes if you haven’t been clear about your expectations.
It’s understandable for you to employ a secondary authority in place. If you cannot keep a check on everyone at all times, delegate that authority to one of your employees now and then. This will also motivate the employee that is given authority to perform better. Properly assigning tasks and resolving them should be a common practice. Everything should be properly communicated in order to terminate any risk of misunderstanding. Implement a system where they can regularly update their progress and you can check it.
Have a self-explanatory policy in place to let them know how to conduct their tasks and manage their progress.
Encourage Employee Feedback
Always ask for and appreciate employee feedback. Employees feel valued when their opinion is acknowledged. This will also help you understand if your message was properly received or not. Sometimes, this approach might invite some constructive criticism, but don’t get all defensive. Make them feel comfortable about saying what they have in mind.
Better Packages
It’s pretty obvious that your employees need compensation for their hard work. An above industry standard paycheque can be a good start, but that’s not what it’s all about. When we say ‘package’, we mean more than just an attractive paycheque.
Employees nowadays want more than just a good paycheque at the end of each month. You need to provide them with what they really value in order to achieve employee loyalty.
- Flexible working hours to support their work-life balance (especially for ones with a child or elder care responsibilities).
- Work from home for employees with longer commutes (wherever possible).
- Competitive exercises to earn a half-day off work.
- Health/Dental/Insurance Benefits.
- Financial support for education and training.
- Free Gym memberships for company employees.
- Cab Facilities for easy commutation.
- Gift Vouchers for good performance.
All these steps will ensure your staff that you care about their life away from work. This will establish their trust and lead to employee retention.
Employ an Anonymous Reporting System
Any kind of harassment or bullying in the workplace can ruin all your efforts and leave you clueless. In most cases of workplace harassment, the victim leaves the organization instead of reporting it. It’s really hard to expose such hidden issues and you might keep blaming yourself for something that’s not your fault. Employees suffering from harassment fear persecution for voicing their concerns. Encourage them to file a human resources complaint. Improve your hr investigation process. Implement YourSafeHub in your organization. It's a special communication software that protects such employees with the power of anonymity.