If you’re a business owner or someone in a management position, you know the stress that can come from consistently having employees quit. From sorting through resumes to conducting interviews to training new employees, the process can be overwhelming. While the stress associated with this process is bad enough, high rates of employee turnover can negatively impact your business in a slew of other ways as well.
Given the terrible effects of consistent employee turnover, it makes sense that putting time and effort into retaining employees is a beneficial practice for any business owner or leader. Here is how employee retention can drastically improve your business.
Employee Retention Makes for a More Robust Company Culture
In any organization, company culture is an important component in its ability to be successful and reach its full potential. When company culture is toxic, it can result in unhappy and less productive employees.
As such, it makes sense that any sensible organizational leader should strive to cultivate a strong and robust company culture. Improving the retention rates of employees becomes a far easier task.
If employees within an organization are constantly coming and going, it can have a severely negative impact on company culture. Employees who stick around will doubtless question their own roles and will be more likely to explore other job opportunities.
Conversely, when employee turnover rates are low, employees will feel more loyal to their company and more motivated to do their best work. No one wants to work for a company that’s losing its workforce at a worrying pace.
By investing in practices that improve employee retention, you can improve your company’s culture while also boosting morale amongst your employees.
Employee Retention Will Save Your Company Money
As most people in organizational leadership roles are aware, paying an employee’s salary is far cheaper than the costs associated with finding, hiring, and training a new employee.
Accordingly, if your company experiences an excessive amount of employee turnover, your company is spending far more money than it should be. Retaining employees can save your organization an immense amount of money — especially if employees are staying for extremely long periods of time.
When hiring a new employee, organizations have to reckon with the fact that new employees will take some time to start getting into the swing of things. If many departments in a company are underperforming as a result of having new employees, it’s likely that the company will lose profits and underperform as an organization. In light of this, increasing efforts to improve employee retention rates can safeguard your organization against an underperforming workforce.
Employee Retention Results in Stronger Employees
While someone can be incredibly skilled in their role from an objective standpoint, having an understanding of one’s organization is paramount to doing great work. If employees aren’t sticking around long enough to develop a deep and thorough understanding of their organization’s processes, companies will have a less adept workforce. This being the case, retaining employees is key to having a strong workforce that is working at its highest potential.
When your organization’s workforce is strong, you’ll experience improved results in every aspect of your business. In addition, strong employees are more capable of solving problems and finding solutions, thereby decreasing the threat of business-related challenges and obstacles.
Given the immense benefits of a strong workforce, investing in employee retention becomes an obvious course of action for any business leader looking to take their business to the next level.
Strategies for Employee Retention
While you may be convinced that it’s time to start putting effort into increasing your employee retention rate, it can be difficult to know where to start. Having some tips and guidance around the topic can make it easier to start implementing effective strategies in your organization to boost employee retention rates. Here are some strategies you can utilize to increase employee retention rates and improve your business.
Upskill Employees
A practice that is becoming increasingly common in organizations across various industries is the practice of upskilling. Put simply, upskilling is the practice of providing employees with new skills to make them more valuable and skilled employees. Typically, organizations will determine which skills to teach their employees based on which skills are most in-demand at any given time.
While upskilling employees benefit companies in a number of significant ways, one of the most amazing benefits is higher employee retention. Employees typically feel a sense of loyalty to their company when provided with the opportunity to learn new skills and will be more likely to stay with the company as a result. In addition, upskilling also incentivizes employees to seek growth opportunities within their company by utilizing their new skills.
Make Communication a Priority
Communication is an incredibly important aspect of crafting a work environment that encourages employees to stick around. If employees don’t feel like they’re being heard, they’ll be more likely to jump at any opportunity to find a new company. In addition, when employees don’t feel like their leaders communicate effectively with them, they’ll be more incentivized to find a new job.
It can be helpful for those in management positions to have scheduled times to touch base with employees. Employees should be able to use this time to have their opinions heard and noted. Conversely, leaders should use this time to communicate deeply with employees and provide more context as to why they are making certain decisions.
Listen to the Feedback from Employees Who Quit
One of the most important things you can do when trying to increase employee retention is to identify what your organization is doing wrong. While it’s never easy to lose an employee, getting feedback from those who quit can help you gain invaluable insight that can help you improve in the future.
Accordingly, it’s a good idea to have a thorough process of gaining feedback from employees who decide to exit your company.
By understanding the reasons behind why your employees are quitting, you’ll be in a better position to make effective changes that will make a significant impact. As such, reaching out to former employees can give you keen insights into how you can accurately remedy your organization’s processes to increase employee retention.
Provide Flexible Work Options to Employees
Today, more and more of the workforce are seeking ways to improve their work/life balance. This can come in many different forms such as remote working options and shorter work weeks. By offering your employees flexible options, they will have a bigger incentive to stay at your company.
Depending on your specific organization and industry, flexibility will look different. If your organization needs employees to be at work in person, you may want to look into alternating shorter work weeks among employees in the same team so that there is always someone present.
However you decide to offer flexible options to your employees, these perks have the power to act as a way to boost your employee retention rate and create a more content workforce.
Employee Retention Should Be a Top Priority
While there are many ways to go about improving your business, increasing employee retention should be a top priority. From improving company culture to saving money to creating a more adept workforce, increased employee retention has the power to transform your organization into an industry juggernaut.
The more effort you put into increasing your organization’s employee retention rates, the more benefits your organization will be able to experience.
About the Author
Ryan Ayers is a researcher and consultant within multiple industries including information technology, blockchain, and business development. Always up for a challenge, Ayers enjoys working with startups as well as Fortune 500 companies. When not at work, Ayers loves reading science fiction novels and watching the LA Clippers.
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