Ever since the pandemic, organizations have been increasingly focusing on employee retention. The term ‘employee retention’ refers to an organization’s ability to keep its employees happy and prevent the best talents from leaving.
Employee retention is a challenge since each individual is wired differently and seeks different experiences. With the right retention strategies at the right times, organizations can cultivate employee morale within and create satisfied, productive employees.
Why is Employee Retention Important?
Employees regularly need to feel appreciated for their perseverance in the organization. When their efforts are not recognized, they tend to leave. This negatively impacts business since projects and targets get delayed. What’s more, there is an added cost of hiring and training new replacements. Instead, a fraction of that amount could have been spent on appeasing them
The HR department always has scope to improve employee retention strategies to retain the best employees. This is because these employees bring the maximum amount of revenue to the table.
What Makes Employees Leave?
When companies lose their top performers, not only does it impact revenue negatively, but they also lose their creativity and problem-solving skills. Even worse, it destroys team morale and damages the brand’s reputation since regular customers may leave too. Let us consider the top reasons for employee turnover before diving into the best employee retention practices.
1. Poor Management
Poor management is one of the top reasons employees quit their jobs. It can create a sense of toxic work culture among employees. With effective management, the HR managers could positively drive employee engagement and boost employee morale. With positive management practices, employee retention rates can be driven up too.
2. Toxic Work Culture
High employee turnover reduces team morale and creates a toxic work culture. A toxic work culture makes it hard for the team to operate at its full potential. This can harm the business, and it could see a loss instead of profits.
3. No Professional Growth
Professional growth and development are priorities for many employees, especially the most determined and career-minded. Employee development is crucial for honing critical abilities and allowing employees to contribute their talents across the company. Your offers should be varied, high-quality, and suited to the employees' working and learning styles to reduce employee turnover.
4. Burnout
It is normal for the majority of companies to go through turbulence and turmoil, which leads to a decline. This environment can be exciting initially but can also negatively affect the business. The employees are an organization’s biggest asset. Mismanagement can lead them to burn out quicker.
High burnout levels increase stress, and they might want to look for greener pastures with a more stable environment. Managers can reduce employee retention by constantly accumulating feedback from their employees and improving the work environment.
Important Employee Retention Strategies
1. High Engagement Levels
Engagement in the organization can refer to the team bonding between employees, their managers, their colleagues, and workplace activities. Engagement levels and employee morale can greatly determine the employee retention rates in an organization.
2. Employee Recognition
Employees definitely enjoy being appreciated for their hard work and contributions to the company. But that is not enough. Giving the employees recognition for their personalised approaches is important. HR managers should celebrate the uniqueness and strengths of each employee.
3. Trust and Respect
High levels of trust and respect amongst employees, colleagues, and managers lead to a positive work environment. When employees feel respected for their contributions, they feel valued. When they feel valued and appreciated, they will be more willing to try to clear any work-related challenges that come their way.
On the other hand, if there is mistrust in the air, employee turnover might increase since all employees prefer to work in a positive environment.
Top 6 Practises to Improve Employee Retention
Your employees are your organization’s greatest asset, even more than your revenue-generating products or services. So, when it comes to securing your company's future, making your employees feel valued and recognized takes precedence.
These are the top 5 practices with the help of which managers can increase employee retention:
1. Onboarding and Orientation
It is a good idea to give the new joinees a jumpstart on their first day of work. Like every new employee in a new environment, the newcomer is sure to be anxious about everything happening around them. The new employees can learn about their job and the company culture.
A great way to boost their confidence on their first day is with a new joinee kit. The contents could vary, but it is usually a T-shirt, pen, keychain, customised laptop bag among other things. If they are working remotely, the new joinee kit will still boost their morale and look forward to work.
2. Give Priority to Employee Wellness
Many employees in big corporations are now working remotely all across the world. It is normal for them to feel disconnected and unvalued since they are away from their colleagues. organizations can send their remote employees, employees taking time off at home wellness gift hampers.
3. Flexible Working Hours
organizations can choose to give their employees some leniency in the form of flexible working hours and eventually paid days off. This is because some of the top performers may complete their assigned targets before time. As long as they get the work done, extra time off will be beneficial for them and the organization.
This is because they will get to recharge with their family and rejuvenate, which will positively impact the company.
4. Provide Mentorship Opportunities
It is not unusual for employees to feel suffocated by their monotonous job and routine. Many employees may also have other ambitions in life, such as studying further or advancing in the company hierarchy. At times, they might have no one to speak to.
Managers should be able to recognize the signs and offer them mentorship programs. In these mentorship programs, they will study to advance to the next level within the organization. These mentorship programs will bring along job satisfaction and strengthen team bonding.
5. Give Corporate Gifts To Employees
HR managers can increase employee retention by involving employees in other activities not revolving around work. For example, it could be festival celebrations, game days for all the teams, friendly competitions, etc. Every employee can be given customized corporate gifts. When employees receive corporate gifts, they will feel valued and appreciated. This way, employee retention will increase.
A perfect gift for employees and clients can be laptop or travel bags that are customized with the company logo and name, which provides passive publicity wherever the employees go.
You can also gift them customizable gift sets comprising a notebook, metal pen, 32GB pen drive and a paper board. Other excellent gift options include healthy snacks, work-from-home goodies, T-shirts, gift hampers, gift cards to their favourite outlets, and so on.
To get started with corporate gifting, check out the complete gifting checklist.
6. Increase Employee Diversity
The workplace functions better when there is diversity in the office. When people from multiple diversities work together, more ideas and cultural talents are shared, which can positively impact business.
Positive team bonding can lead to better employee and customer relationships, which will also help the business. Small changes, such as having multi-faith prayer rooms can also help in increasing employee retention since everyone will feel valued.
Author Bio: Srikanth Acharya is the founder of Offineeds, a leading corporate gifting company in India that specializes in promotional gifts such as corporate laptop bags, branded t-shirts, welcome kit for new employees, and more.
