Keeping your best employees is critical to a business or company’s survival. Having them ensures consistent delivery of output, increased sales, higher customer satisfaction, and an overall engaged workforce.
They are the company’s most tangible proof of a well-oiled organization. It is their greatest source of succession, knowledge, skills and training. To an outsider, retaining their best employees offer a snapshot of how a great employer the company is.
Why does employee retention matter?
Employee retention is key to surviving. Failing to keep your best employees is more costly than you think. It negatively impacts your bottom line. More importantly, it creates organizational imbalance and insecure co-workers.
10 proven employee retention advice.
Many companies take great lengths at keeping their best employees. From offering office healthy snack delivery to free gym services, companies today pay a lot of attention in making sure the culture remains dynamic and engaging to keep the environment healthy and happy.
Below are 10 proven employee retention advice that will help you keep your them.
1. Set proper expectations.
One of the main reasons why exemplary employees become exhausted is because they no longer understand what they’re supposed to do. In most cases, they have lost sight of their scope. Eventually, they decide to leave the company because they no longer find sense in what they’re doing.
The top 4 reasons why most good employees leave are the following:
- Unclear expectations
- Unclear growth opportunities
- Unclear earning potential
- Lack of a defined success criteria
That’s the reason why it is crucial to set the correct expectations. It’s important to be clear about what the employee is supposed to do and what they’re required to deliver. Provide a clear framework of what you expect from your people. It will provide them a proper guide to performing their work.
2. Provide quality and effective leadership.
Great employees don’t necessarily leave the company. In most cases, they leave their boss. It is a known fact. However, it is mostly overlooked. Especially at the senior leadership level.
If your best employees are not led effectively by a good leader, they eventually become lost. Moreover, if there’s ongoing conflict between the employees and management, there’s a greater chance of these good employees leaving despite their love for the company.
Effective leaders should:
- Be approachable
- Lead by example
- Inspire and engage employees
- Listen to employees’ feedback
3. Let your employees speak.
Promoting a platform for your employees to freely share their ideas create a more engaged environment. When your employees are given the opportunity to freely speak up their minds, they become more collaborative. It promotes a culture of continuous improvement where all contribute, criticize and commit to agreed ideas.
In some cases, companies break norms by moving away from cubicles and office set up to promote an open-door policy. A lot of commercial spaces, offer this type of setup as well, such as what you’ll find in Gumtree office space.
4. Encourage employees to use their skills and talents.
Your best employees come with superb skills and talents that are waiting to be unleashed. Restricting them from using their talents and skills can cause boredom and monotony. Great employees will lose a sense of value and feel deprived.
Some of the most basic situations when this can be manifested are through the following:
- Allow an employee to showcase his Excel skills by automating your processes through Macros
- Encourage an employee to lead a committee for a company event if he’s into organizing teams and/or events
5. Promote a culture of fair and equal treatment.
Establishing a culture of fairness and equality promotes healthy competition. Employees perform better when they know that the playing field is even.
For instance, when giving out incentives for sales, always follow agreed metrics and/or established success criteria for sales targets. Never give out rewards for ambiguous or discretionary reasons.
6. Provide tools and training.
Providing your employees with adequate training and tools to perform their job more effectively is critical. It helps enable them to excel more and produce better results. If this is missed, employees stagnate resulting to mediocre performance.
7. Offer new opportunities to grow.
Having a clear development plan and opportunities for growth provides a sense of direction to your best employees. When they know where they’re going to end up next in the ladder enables them to push for excellence.
8. Make them feel they exist.
Employees become more motivated when they feel they’re part of something. It’s important to make your employees feel that they exist and valued. Promoting that culture in the work environment translates to over-performing employees that care much about the company.
9. Avoid threatening their job security or income.
When your best employees feel that their future or livelihood are at stake, their immediate reaction will be to find opportunities outside. That’s why it’s important to plan changes carefully, even at the point of a looming workforce reduction. Again, proper expectations will make a difference.
10. Recognize and appreciate your employees.
What many companies fail to execute is employee recognition and appreciation. This is a huge factor and plays a pivotal role in keeping your best employees.
This can be done in simple ways, such as:
- Giving a certificate of appreciation and/or a manager’s appreciation to an employee who’s done an outstanding job for the month
- Recognizing an employee in public for doing an extra mile for customers
Conclusion.
Retaining your best employees ensures the company’s future. Continuity of the strategy and seamless execution can only be possible when the same exemplary people lead. These advices can go a long way and can translate to longevity, engagement and overall company dynamics.
