One of the most important things an employer could do is retain their employees. It costs a lot more money to go through the hiring process and to put together a package of hiring for somebody new than it does to retain your already loyal employees. If you don’t want people leaving your business, then you need to incentivise them to stay, and that means looking at your retention budgets and seeing how you can improve.
A corporate health package is going to go far further for somebody who already works for you and needs the additional help then trying to bring somebody in cheaper. You need to make sure that your retention strategy is better than your recruitment strategy, because the money that you pour into your existing employees is going to go further than it is trying to bring new people on board. Let’s take a look at some of the strategies you can use to retain your employees and make people happier for longer.
- Make loyalty a good thing. Do you know how annoying it is for an employee to sit at their desk and know that you don’t care about them as much as you do the newbies? If you are not putting together a decent retention budget, you are telling people that retaining them doesn’t matter to you as much as it should, that they are replaceable. That doesn’t inspire anybody to do better at their job. In fact, it inspires people to boomerang to another one.
- Give good growth opportunities. Imagine what it would be like if all of the best people who work for you handed in their resignation at once. If you could shape that into something different, what would you do? Of course you’d keep your best people, wouldn’t you? You need to look for ways to make that happen, and the best way to do it is to bring units for growth and a future in your business. If you do not give people a future in your business. They’re going to move on because why would they want to stay somewhere that there is a ceiling on their skills?
- Give people a purpose. Purpose is the reason that your business exists. There is a problem that your business is solving for others and you need good people on board to help you to do that. You have to prove to your employees that there is more to your organization than just the bottom line, and that they have an important role in being a part of it. Use your purpose in a way that shapes what you do and how you do it.
- Prioritize connection. Working for 9 hours per day for everybody is boring, even for you, so you need to make sure that you are making it fun and you’re making it exciting for others. Put work aside and make sure that you have built relationships with all of your employees and that they have time to build relationships with each other. Don’t admonish people for talking at their desks, because that’s how people learn about each other and how they bond.