Finding the magic formula needed to retain quality employees eludes nearly 80 percent of all companies, as reported by Entrepreneur Magazine. If you also find it difficult to keep great employees around, you are not alone — but it is time to take a closer look at your company to see how you can improve.
Fortunately, it is possible to greatly improve your employee retention rates. To help you get started, here are a few things to look at as you assess your company to improve employee retention across the board.
1. Company Culture
With a well-defined company culture, you can set out to find employees who will fit in perfectly with your mission and values. You just have to build your team dynamic and focus using your company mission as a guide. From there, you can integrate your company values into all of your operations to keep your employees engaged and pushing toward your overall goals. Without a good culture fit, many employees start their job search anew, in hopes of finding somewhere that will ignite their passions and provide a strong sense of purpose.
2. Benefits Package
Compensation matters, but it takes more than a paycheck to keep employees from jumping ship. The benefits package you offer, however, can make or break your ability to attract and retain the top talent. If your benefits package does not compare to your competitors’, you could constantly lose employees to their companies — and incur significant costs due to high turnover.
In fact, for each skilled employee you lose, their absence and the efforts needed to fill their role could end up costing you 200% of their annual compensation package, according to HuffPost. So, it is important to retain your employees from the start and a solid benefits package is a great first step in keeping them loyal to your company.
3. Employee Selection
You can boost employee retention from the start by choosing the candidates who are mostly likely to be satisfied in their jobs and stay with your company. Through an effective interview and hiring process, your HR team can make sure to only bring on new hires who will work well with your current workforce, as well as show passion and commitment to their work. This may include multiple interviews, behavioral assessments and even reference checking. As you and your team do the legwork upfront, you can reduce turnover and facilitate the smooth operation of your company in the long run.
4. Engagement
Employees need to feel like they are a vital asset to your company to remain fully-engaged and interested in working there. Otherwise, they could start to look elsewhere to fulfill their sense of purpose and contribute to more meaningful projects.
Thankfully, maximizing employee engagement is as easy as offering regular feedback and recognition for a job well done. As you tell employees how their contributions benefit your company, their loyalty often increases in kind.
5. Career Growth and Development Opportunities
Encouraging your employees to pursue career growth and development opportunities can go a long way in optimizing your retention rates. To ensure these opportunities are fully accessible to your employees, you should provide information about their options and provide time off to achieve those goals. You can also up the ante even more by setting up quarterly rewards that encourage your employees to reach their career goals, such as completing certificate programs.
How to Improve Your Employee Retention Rates Today
Applying these employee retention strategies is definitely easier said than done unless you have support from an effective human resources team. Your HR team can swiftly improve the factors affecting employee retention to help your company keep top talent onboard for the long-term. Unfortunately, this may be out of reach for many small businesses, as it costs a lot of time, money, and manpower to complete these HR tasks.
Thankfully, PRemployer is here to help. With our HR services, we can provide the tools, services and support you need to improve in these areas, helping keep your workers loyal to your company for years to come. Visit our website to learn more about our service plans.
