Employee Retention rates are at an all-time low in the past few years. It’s one of the biggest expenses for a business, and managers are rattling their heads trying to figure a solution. Lose a valuable employee and spend time looking for a new one, train him/her, endure the set back in productivity, only to find out that he’s leaving in a few months too. It’s an endless cycle if you make it be. The blame is always shifted on poor onboarding, hiring of millennials, and the competition stealing your thunder. While these reasons might sound compelling to one naive manager, it’s none of them. The biggest reason your employees keep leaving you is that they’re unhappy.
It’s human nature for an individual to seek happiness in what they do. If you cannot keep your employees happy at work, they will leave your company to find joy somewhere else. And while both you and your employees might convince themselves that the reason is better to pay, it’s almost never the complete truth.
So how does one keep their employees happy?
1. Career Growth
If you don’t provide your employees with enough opportunities to grow and learn at your company, you are much more likely to lose them. Employees seek to grow and reach their full potential throughout their career. If they see themselves going nowhere with a job, they will eventually switch to a different company to fulfill that need. Give them enough opportunities to present themselves with exposure to challenging tasks. Provide on the job training and improve their performance. Knowing that their company is looking out for their overall growth will establish loyalty. Timely give out promotions. This will prepare them for future roles and encourage other employees to perform better.
2. Prerequisites
There’s much more to employee engagement than good packages. Employees require their work-life to be happy, not just a means to make their private ones tolerable. Introduce different fringe benefits and other perks to keep it exciting and full of opportunities. Provide your employees with free gym memberships, daycare, lunch at work, gift vouchers, and bonuses. These prerequisites are always considered while making a decision between two different companies. It also establishes an image of prestige in your organization and your employees will be more comfortable in your workplace.
3. Mentorship
People like having guided by an experienced individual they admire. Mentorship plays a great role in maintaining trust and fruitful relationships in the organization. Putting seniors and juniors together for certain tasks plays a huge role in employee loyalty. It’s great for team building, employee productivity, and engagement. Employees who find their mentors in an organization are much less likely to leave the company for something better.
4. Engagement
Have you ever felt like your contribution to the organization is next to nothing? Well, that’s how many of your employees might feel. When the role is limited to completing tasks and answering for them, anyone would have an existential crisis at some point. You need your employees to feel valued in the company they work in. Always hear what they have to say about something. Their input is much more valuable than you might think. Timely ask for their feedback and share yours.
Communication
Employees are prone to a great deal of stress at work, every now and then they need your counsel going forward. There are tons of hidden problems in a workplace that employees endure. Many of which will badly obstruct your efforts if overlooked. Workplace bullying and harassment cases are popping up all over the world and taking down organizations. You need to detect these issues and resolve them before your employees have had enough.
Since these issues are delicate in nature, employees might not be very upcoming about reporting them. Implement YourSafeHub in your organization. It’s a secure communication channel that lets employees report such problems anonymously.
Liberty
Another thing that employees always seem to be complaining about is not having enough liberty at work. As a matter of fact, many times employees quit the organization because they aren’t allowed to improvise. They want the liberty of making their decisions themselves. Given enough freedom to handle their tasks and look after themselves, they will reach their true potential and showcase great talents.
At the end of the day, you cannot blame an employee for leaving your organization on account of a depressing environment. It’s your job to look after their needs, which includes their right to be happy at work. Implementing these tips will help you create a workplace in which both you and your employees would want to work in.