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In Part 1, we shared numerous reasons employees might decide to leave your company. As we know, it can be very costly to handle high turnover rates and repeatedly onboard new employees. Establishing and maintaining an employee retention strategy can help you keep your best talent. Employee job satisfaction and engagement factors should be considered the key ingredients of employee retention efforts. Here a few contributors to job satisfaction:
  • Job security. Employees want to know they are going to continue to have their job. If they feel their position is threatened they may start to look elsewhere. Keeping an open dialogue and addressing job security fears as they arise will help your workers feel secure.
  • Job opportunities. The opportunity for advancement is extremely appealing to employees of all levels. People like to feel they are working to better themselves and that there are options for them to grow at a company. If employees do not find areas to grow at your company, they may move to other businesses to find those choices.
  • Taking the time to evaluate and recognize hard work and accomplishments tells employees that they are valued at your company. Even just a simple “thank you for your work” at the end of a meeting, week, or particularly challenging task helps employees feel recognized and increases their job satisfaction.
  • Compensation and benefits. Offering competitive and fair pay drives employees to stay with your company. Additionally, traditional benefits packages [healthcare, retirement savings, leave, and financial planning] are also important to most employees.
We understand that it is not always cost effective to increase employees’ compensation or benefits packages, sometimes it is simply not in the budget. However, there are other strategic benefits you can offer that promote work-life balance which is becoming increasingly important to employees. Here are some:
  • Wellness initiatives can help increase work productivity and decrease health care costs and unplanned absences.
  • Helping with student debt repayment or education assistance can help retain employees of younger generations as they come to dominate the workforce
  • Flexible work practices such as telecommuting, remote working, and flexible hours can often be implement with little to no added costs and are a huge benefit for workers.
Lastly, spending time explaining the benefits that are available can help retain key employees; often people are unaware or forgetful of what benefits are available to them. Human resources personnel should periodically check to see if employees are using their benefits and remind ones who are not about their options. Do you have questions about reducing employee turnover? If you need assistance with establishing a retention strategy or other human resource needs, contact us and check out our blog for more helpful resources.