Retention Tips!
Candidates with in-demand skills typically don’t wait too long or search too hard for a new opportunity. The pandemic taught many companies to never stop recruiting, but maintaining employees is crucial for a stable, productive and motivated workforce.
The key to retention starts on DAY ONE. Your onboarding process should teach new employees about the company culture and how they can thrive in it. The support and training you provide on their first day can set the tone of the employee’s entire tenure at your firm.
Going forward, fairness and transparency are fundamental yet powerful concepts that can make a lasting impression on employees. According to SHRM research, employees identified these five factors as the leading contributors to job satisfaction:
Respectful treatment of all employees, at all levels.
Compensation/pay.
Trust between employees and senior management.
Job security.
Opportunities to use their skills and abilities at work.
The idea behind employee retention is simple. If people are doing work that they care about, in an environment that they feel good in, and are being compensated well for it, they stay. Don't wait until someone has a foot out the door to start talking about retention. This can come across as insincere and is often insufficient. Leaving a job isn’t an overnight decision. Once someone has gone through the steps of interviewing for and lining up another position, usually only a substantial salary increase can get them to stay.
Attrition can also be contagious. Exit interviews can be a valuable source of feedback and help you prevent more employee turnover. Consider "stay" interviews as well. Periodically interview the people who don't leave to find out why they stay and what they think about when they consider leaving. Your current employees are likely being contacted by recruiters all the time — why do they stay? Learn and share these findings with your management team.
Retention is something that happens every day that a person chooses to work for you. There's no standardized list that will tell you what gets your team members to stick around. Communication is the key! Your employees are your single best source of information when it comes to your company culture and why they continue to show up, or not, to work.
Your employee retention strategy is at the heart of what makes your company productive, profitable, and a place where people can thrive in their careers. Investing your time and energy into keeping your people happy is a worthwhile endeavor!