Increasing Employee Retention and Lowering Turnover Rates

The age-old question about employee relations and retention seems to be what causes good employees to flee. It’s pretty safe to say management style, company initiative and treatment of the staff are all exceptionally important factors. Forbes narrowed down some of the best ways to keep a strong team within your business. We’re going to explore these suggestions and explain why each one should be incorporated into your company.

Ensuring your employees are a solid fit within your current team is essential. If your new-hire doesn’t feel they blend in with the structure, they will be less inclined to try and stay with the company. As informative as interview questions maybe, they’re no substitute for the trial period of adjustment and allowing the staff to make their own assessments.

Offering wages and benefits which not only rival but exceed competitors will enable you leverage when negotiating with a potential new candidate. Salaries factoring in a reasonable number of hours and compensation to adequately cover cost of living, entertainment and personal goals are invaluable. When considering benefits, things such as medical and dental insurance should be considered but shouldn’t be left at that alone. With some companies offering “experiential rewards” to exceptional employees, providing incentives like getaway trips and once-in-a-lifetime experiences seems to be a winning idea that has potential employees viewing benefits packages in a new and exciting light.

One of the more key components to keeping great employees within your ranks is to recognize and highlight positive behavior and hard work. We all to often will notice a great job being done and not take the time to properly praise and appreciate the person behind the work. Using a four step process, providing valuable and necessary praise will be something you can easily incorporate into your daily routine.

Making an employee feel valued and allowing them to hear they are valued are great ways to keep your staff happy. In order to make them feel secure in their job, they need to clearly see a future for themselves that involves advancement and opportunity. Keeping an employee file accessible to the employee illustrating accomplishments within current and previous roles, goals to reach new roles and a track to moving forward will allow the individual to see their contributions not only benefit their personal goals within their position but within the company as a whole. New programs are popping up to make an electronic path for employees to follow versus the paper trail and file. Of all the steps, I suggest you …read more about how to maintain and encourage the use of the career path tracking.

The most difficult way to ensure employee retention but possibly one of the simplest ways is to offer a flexible work schedule. With life constantly pulling us all in a number of ways, feeling you have some control over the hours, location and way you work can provide an indescribable amount of relief. Maintaining a healthy balance between work and home life seems to be a monumental task made easier when you don’t feel as though the two worlds are colliding. Short staffing and lack of available employees won’t be as tumultuous if they’re not made to feel their absence is an inconvenience. Things will happen last minute, and no company will be perfect but following these very realistic steps will help to ensure the hard work, dedication and positive energy of your staff will stay within your company and not float around to your competition.