Ever wonder why some employees stay at companies forever and others leave often? Ever hear that a certain organization “treats their employees well” or “treats their employees poorly?” Organizations and companies are taking an extra look at the importance of employee retention. Employee retention is the act of an organization actively attempting to maintain its employees. Finding your perfect A-team is hard, but keeping it might be even harder.
How to Find the Best Employees
The first step to keeping good employees is to find good employees. Building the best team– whether they’re co-located or work remotely– is the first part of keeping employee turnover down. Finding good remote employees may be harder than those work in the same office. Remote work is in high demand these days, but it’s difficult to know how much they bring to the table. employees. Here are some tips to ensure you are getting the best A-team out there.
1. Start with the job posting
By having a detailed, quality job posting you will attract the best people. If you have a detailed post making sure that people understand what you are looking for then you will only bring in those people. Setting limits to experience and education will hopefully eliminate people that you may not want.
2. Test competency for possible new employees
Testing competency in various forms can be beneficial to the hiring process. First, use interview scenarios and different skills assessments to ensure you are getting the best team. It may be important to remember during interviewing for remote positions that sometimes interviews can cause nervousness which may have little reflection of the employees actual set of skills or competency.
3. Start with a trial period
This can be especially helpful when hiring remote workers. Have a project ready to go for your new employee and keep the lines of communication wide open. Make sure you key in on their strengths and weaknesses and see how they are balancing their new project and making time for their remote work. Watching how people dive right in, have the ability to ask the right questions or take initiative on going the extra mile will help you to see if this person is the right fit for the company.
4. Trust your gut
Pay attention to how you feel about a particular person or initial gut reaction. If you feel like you can’t trust someone or get a bad vibe you might want to rethink putting them on your team. On the flip side if someone is giving you a positive feeling and you feel good about the addition to your team, go for it!
Employee Retention Techniques
Once you find the best team out there employee retention is essential. In recent studies with professionals, it showed that many would actually leave their work setting and their job assuming the job market would improve. It also showed that these same professionals assumed the job market would be improving in the near future. With employment rates at an all-time low and compensation rates at an all-time high, it is important for employers to be competitive and making their employees happy. Here is a list of some of the best ways to treat your employees so you don’t lose them.
Nine Great Employee Retention Ideas
1. Offer the best competitive compensation package
People work for a paycheck and to provide for themselves and their families. By offering the best compensation package you are sure to keep the best employees. Compensation package means that you not only offer the best pay but also offer good health insurance, disability pay and PTO.
2. Provide appropriate, necessary and useful training
Employees like to feel like they are doing a good job and knows what they are doing is correct. By providing the appropriate training’s, listening to feedback and allowing for discussion employees will appreciate feeling like you care about them doing a good job. It also helps employees feel confident in what they are doing.
3. Respect and listen
Making sure you are showing respect to employees and always listening to their opinions and what they have to offer is important for a respectful environment. Everyone wants to feel like they are being heard and that is no different for employees.
4. Offer positive reinforcement
Making sure that you provide employees with positive feedback and positive reinforcement when a job is well done is important for positive feel and staff that wants to do a good job.
5. Involve the right people.
Have you ever worked for a company that makes policy and procedure but doesn’t actually include anyone that has to do specific tasks on those policies? For example, there are people who have a job to write a curriculum for schools but are not necessarily teachers. How can you expect teachers to teach a certain curriculum but not include them? Including the appropriate staff to have a say in certain decisions can help the way a company works and operates.
6. Staff adequately
Making sure that your company is staffed properly and overtime is minimized makes for good employee morale and good mental health of employees. If staff wants overtime then some would be available for them and for those who don’t want overtime they would not be required to do so.
7. Organize company traditions
Traditions work well with families and the same go for organizations. When there are traditions such as an annual Christmas party or annual costume party at Halloween. Companies can have a non-profit that they volunteer for together or give back to as a team.
8. Provide growth opportunities
Employees want to know and believe that there is room for growth and moving up in a company. By providing the right training’s, opportunities and promotions within an organization you can show employees that they can also grow within the company and will be more likely to stay and work toward moving up.
9. Focus on communication
. Communicating the right roles and responsibilities to different employees and making sure that everyone knows what is expected of them can help to make for good relationships at the office. Harboring good relationships in the office and even remotely among various employees is important for good employee work.
What causes employee turnover?
In addition to making sure employees’ are kept happy and keeping your A-team, it could be beneficial to look at what are some of the causes of employee turnover. It can cost a company a lot of money when employee turnovers are high. In addition to money, allowing for new employees’ to feel comfortable and productive can take some time. In fact, some studies show that it could take upwards to 2 years before a new employee is completely effective. Here are some of the main causes of employee turnover rates to be high.
Overworked employees
Employees that are overworked and feel like they have too much on their plate is one of the biggest struggles with work motivation. When employees feel overwhelmed and don’t get their work accomplished they don’t feel productive. Employees don’t like feeling taken advantage of and feeling that way and feeling overworked can cause for high turn over rates and low employee satisfaction rates.
Treating employees differently
No one likes a “suck up.” Similarly, no one likes when the boss plays favorites. Making sure everyone is being treated the same and no favorites are being shown around the office is important to employee morale.
Low salaries
Studies of employee satisfaction show that employees will leave companies for as little as a 10 percent raise. When organizations offer low salaries and small raises, employees are less likely to stick around.
Toxic work environments
There is a strong connection between employee satisfaction and work culture. When employees are happy with their work culture, they tend to enjoy their jobs. Conversely, employees who work in a toxic culture tend to be unhappy with their job and company.
Bad bosses
If you see a group of employees constantly turning over from the same manager, chances are the leadership is poor. People tend to not leave their jobs, they tend to leave their bosses. If you think about it, people change their job typically for the same type of job.
Lack of career development opportunities.
Employees want to develop professionally and want to believe there is room for growth and expansion in their current job. If you don’t allow for employee growth then workers will feel like they are just cranking out work to enhance their employer’s bank account.
Lack of employee recognition
Employees can’t be expected to bust their butts for you on a daily basis and not even receive one thank you or a “job well done.” People like to feel like they are needed and like what they do matters.
Employee retention is important to any organization that wants to run effectively and stay financially viable. Understanding good employee retention techniques and how to enhance employee satisfaction will improve every aspect of your business. Working environments in the office as well as remote working environments should always be focused on keeping your best employees. Employee engagement and employee retention can help to make for the best employees and in turn make for the best organizations to work for. Find out how employees achieve work life balance and how communication in business is important.
