7 Golden Rules For Employee Retention: How To Keep Your Employees Happy And Engaged
Employee retention is an extremely important topic for businesses of all sizes. Knowing how to retain employees can be the difference between a company that thrives and one that struggles to stay afloat.
Since employee retention is a challenging area for so many companies, it’s fortunate that there are effective strategies we can use to keep our team members happy and productive. With so many businesses struggling with employee retention, it’s clear this topic isn’t going away anytime soon.
If you’re reading this article, chances are you work as part of a team in some capacity. As such, you understand how much impact your individual performance has on the company as a whole. While every business has its ups and downs, there are some things you can do as an individual to make sure your company is more likely to thrive over time rather than struggle to survive another day.
Hiring the Right People
Before you can start improving employee retention, you first need to make sure you’re hiring the best employees possible. This means taking the time to find the right people for the job. It may sound obvious, but many companies don’t take the time to properly vet job candidates. This can lead to employees who aren’t a good fit for the role or the company as a whole. If you want to hire the right people, you need to make sure you follow these tips: - Hire for the company culture - The right people will fit with your company’s culture. If they don’t, they’ll likely clash with other team members and be less productive overall. - Be selective - Don’t hire someone who is just barely qualified for the job. Instead, hire the best people possible. This will allow you to build a stronger team that is more likely to stay and thrive as time goes on.
Know your employees
If you want to keep your employees happy and engaged, you need to know them on a personal level as well as professionally. In other words, your employees need to know that you care about them as people as well as team members. This can be accomplished through various activities, including hosting regular team-building events, providing ample vacation and sick leave, and giving employees opportunities to work remotely. You can even get to know your team members better by using performance management software that includes employee surveys. These surveys allow you to get a better idea of what your employees think about the company and what they need in order to be as productive as possible. Knowing your employees is crucial to helping them feel valued and supported while they are working for your company. Without this crucial support system in place, it will be much more difficult for your team members to feel motivated and productive.
Create a sense of belonging
Every employee is different. However, all employees want to feel like they belong somewhere and are contributing to something meaningful. If you want your employees to feel like they belong, you need to make sure they have ample opportunities to do the following: - Learn and grow - Every employee wants to progress in their career. If they aren’t given opportunities to learn and grow, they’ll likely become bored and less interested in the job. If your employees aren’t being challenged, you need to step in and provide them with new responsibilities. - Contribute to something bigger - All employees want to feel like their work matters. In other words, they want to feel like it goes beyond self-interest and has a positive impact on the world. This might be in the form of volunteering, participating in social good initiatives, or contributing to charities. It also might be in the form of producing high-quality work that has a positive impact on your customers.
Offer continual growth and development
Employee engagement is often measured by whether employees feel they have the opportunity to grow and develop. If you want your employees to remain happy, productive, and engaged, you need to offer continual growth and development opportunities. You can do this in a number of ways, including the following: - Providing adequate training - Employees want to be taught new skills and made more productive. If you don’t provide adequate training, your employees will likely feel unproductive and less valuable as time goes on. - Having a clear path for promotion - Your employees want to know that they have a clear path for promotion. This will help them to feel more secure in their job and achieve a greater sense of purpose in the work they do on a daily basis.
Celebrate milestones with employees
Throughout the course of their employment, your employees will likely reach a number of milestones. These might include the completion of a project, reaching a certain number of work hours, or simply staying with the company for a certain amount of time. When these milestones are reached, you need to celebrate them. This can involve anything from a simple verbal acknowledgment to a team outing. No matter what you decide, it’s important to celebrate these milestones with your employees. This will help them to feel like they are a valued part of the team and have an impact on the company as a whole.
Show you care about your employees’ wellbeing
Although productivity is important, it is also important to remember that, at the end of the day, people are more important than profit. If you want your employees to stay happy and engaged, you need to show them you care about their wellbeing. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, including the following: - Providing ample benefits - Your employees want good benefits and ample time off. If you don’t provide these things, they will likely become less interested in staying with the company and more focused on finding a new job elsewhere. - Offering flexible work hours and options - Employees want to be able to choose how they work. If you force your employees to strictly follow a set schedule, they will likely feel frustrated and unappreciated.
Incorporate employee input
As previously discussed, your employees are likely to be very knowledgeable about the work they do on a daily basis. This means they likely have plenty of ideas on how to improve the company and their work. If you want to keep your employees happy and engaged, you need to incorporate their feedback into the decision-making process. In other words, you need to take the time to listen to what your team members have to say and then use their input to inform your decision-making as a manager or business owner. This will help you to improve employee retention by letting your team members know they are valued and their opinions are important.
Wrapping Up
Employee retention is a crucial topic for businesses of all sizes. Knowing how to retain employees can be the difference between a company that thrives and one that struggles to stay afloat. Before you can start improving employee retention, you first need to make sure you’re hiring the best employees possible. This means taking the time to find the right people for the job. It may sound obvious, but many companies don’t take the time to properly vet job candidates. This can lead to employees who aren’t a good fit for the role or the company as a whole. Once you’ve hired the right people, you need to make sure that your employees feel valued, supported, and like they belong. This can be accomplished through a variety of methods, including providing ample training, having a clear path for promotion, celebrating milestones, and showing you care about your employees’ wellbeing.
