A high turnover rate can be disruptive, demoralizing, and expensive. To ensure your top talent stays with your organization, implement effective employee retention strategies.
Why Is Retaining Talent Important for Business?
With every year that an employee stays at your company, their knowledge grows and their value increases immensely. In small business, we don’t often quantify the cost of losing good people but we know with absolute certainty that retaining talent is a critical component of any successful business. When you have a team of talented, committed individuals working together over time, they become attached to one another and that strengthens commitment, and increases productivity. Losing a talented employee is a huge setback, emotionally and financially for everyone who worked with that person.
How to Keep Employees From Leaving
Offering competitive pay and excellent benefits are great ways to retain employees, but a poor leadership team is the biggest factor that causes valuable team members to quit companies.
Use the following employee retention strategies to keep employees from leaving your company:
Avoid Bad Boss Behavior
- Publicly criticizing team members in front of their peers
- Killing initiatives and ideas
- Refusing to consider promotions and raises without giving valid reasons
- Giving unclear directives without the why and the how
Communicate Honestly and Effectively
If your leaders are struggling to communicate effectively with their employees, they’re not alone. In fact, 41% of employees surveyed by SHRM said that effective communication is the top skill their managers need to improve upon. The good news is that there are some simple things managers can do to improve themselves.
Managers should get an understanding of their own communication style relative to the preferences of their individual team members.Giving them the Myers-Brigg Personality Indicator is great for helping them understand their communication style and how to adjust it to ensure they’re speaking to employees in a way they’re comfortable with.
Your leadership team should also be honest and transparent with employees by sharing wins and losses and being candid. When your managers lead with honesty and transparency, they increase clarity and show team members they trust and respect them.
Show Compassion and Empathy
Demonstrating compassion and empathy in the workplace is a must. At the end of the day, your employees are people with needs and feelings who deserve to be treated with kindness and understanding. One way to foster a culture of compassion and empathy is to create a safe space for your employees to come to their managers with problems—without judgment.
For a team member who’s going through a personal issue or feeling overwhelmed by their workload, their manager should show compassion by listening without judgment, perhaps offering a day off to recharge and take care of their mental health. This kind of leadership allows workers to feel comfortable enough to share their experiences. That way, they can receive the support they need to perform at their best.
Be Your Authentic Self
According to a Gartner research study, 90% of HR leaders believe that successful leaders focus on the human aspects of leadership, with authenticity being one of the top three components. By encouraging your leaders to show their true selves at work, your employees will likely do the same. This is especially true for millennials and Gen Z, who place a high value on working for organizations and people they trust. So if you want to ensure that your valuable employees stick around for the long haul, make sure your leaders manage with their authentic selves.
Don’t Forget About Employee Recognition
Train your leaders to deliberately and proactively go looking for people doing something right. It’s human nature to see what people are doing wrong so counteract that by catching someone doing something well and point it out right then and there. A formal recognition program is also a great way to make employees feel good and encourage them to continue exhibiting the same behavior. When they feel appreciated and acknowledged for their hard work and accomplishments, they’re more likely to stay with your company and be more engaged, which helps build a positive work culture and stronger team dynamic.
Be Flexible
A manager’s ability to resolve employee concerns is key to team success and retention, but it’s only possible when leaders have the flexibility and freedom to make decisions that best suit their team members. By giving your leaders some authority, they can come up with creative solutions that make a big difference in the day-to-day work experience. Whether it’s developing flexible schedules or rearranging responsibilities, small changes can have a big impact on how your people feel about their manager—and work environment.
Involve Employee in Decisions
Engaging people is one of the most powerful ways to ensure they feel appreciated and valued. Let your leaders know that they don’t have to, and shouldn’t, make all the decisions. Train leaders to ask for input and then look for ways to use the input they get. Talk about retaining talent… involving employees in changes and decisions works for everyone!
Retain Talent With Business Coaching Services
- Create a current and future organization chart
- Identify people’s strengths and weaknesses
- Strengthen trust among team members
- Achieve team focus and effectively manage conflict
- Ensure clarity and closure
- Create a culture of accountability
- Focus on collective outcomes and celebrate
