Talent Management in the Ever-Changing Recruiting Landscape: Employee Retention
Attracting the right talent is difficult enough, but trying to keep your people can be a lot trickier.
Since the good ones are often employed, companies looking to fill key roles in various internal departments are ramping up their recruitment game to expand their talent pool and tap seemingly unavailable professionals. Therefore, many businesses must boost retention efforts to keep top performers from entertaining job offers coming from rival companies.
To help you keep top-performing professionals for the long haul, here are five factors that can heavily affect your employees' decisions to stay in your company and a few tips to revamp your retention strategies.
The Right Fit
First, you must hire the right people.
Employee turnover is often caused by a bad hire, while a perfectly fit talent is likely to remain with the company, especially if they blend well with other employees and the organization's culture. So don't rush your hiring decision. Instead, make sure you have the right tools to attract qualified and perfect fit candidates right from the start to take in potential loyal employees.
Competitive Compensation, Monetary Benefits, and Other Perks
It's a no-brainer that compensation is one factor for an employee to stay in the organization. In a recent survey conducted by Icon Executive Asia, almost half of the respondents said compensation would make them accept a job offer. People want to be compensated or rewarded fairly for the work they do. Considering this, you may need to regularly evaluate and adjust your compensation packages according to the salary packages top candidates are being offered in your market. Adjustments and raises in salary do not only benefit the employees but also your company as it saves you from spending money because, in most cases, it's more costly to replace than to retain.
Aside from compensation, perks and benefits are among the many things that help a company re-engage employees. While incentives, allowances, and reimbursements motivate workers to do better, offering perks is not limited to monetary benefits. It can be in the form of free meals, company laptops, discount vouchers, or other freebies. Additionally, as we know, the workforce continues to embrace work-from-home and hybrid work arrangements, so more professionals crave flexibility in where and when they work. That being said, just like what I stated in a previous article, you may consider offering remote work or play around with multiple work arrangements to keep them from looking for greener pastures.
Recognition and Appreciation
Regardless of profession or industry, it's common knowledge that feeling underappreciated at work despite efforts and achievements can reduce productivity and engagement of the employees and even push some to find a new company that can provide a meaningful sense of appreciation. For this reason, always be sure to make your employees feel valued. Try to create a sense of belonging in the workplace. It can be as small as regularly checking in on them or welcoming their feedback, or as big as financial rewards, an annual retreat, or an employee recognition program. Whatever your approach is, do it not just for your internal retention but for your employees.
Health and Safety
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, health has been the top priority for everyone. To address this and show your employees that you care, you can offer health insurance, medical checkup, and paid sick leaves. The procurement of cleaning and sanitation equipment is also essential to maintain safety in the workplace.
Work-life Balance
Your employees are humans, and just like you business owners, they have lives outside of work.
The lines between the work and the private lives of the workforce have become even more blurry as we continue to live in today's hyperconnected world. And the absence of a work-life balance can lead to burnout.
Burnout can pose a grave threat to your internal retention. No matter how skilled, experienced, and knowledgeable your employees are, and even if they have been with you for years, if they are completely burned out and overwhelmed, the chances are high that they will not stay with your company for long.
To save you from losing your top performers due to burnout, start respecting their personal time outside office hours unless urgent, let them take breaks, allow them to breathe, and find ways to make work-life balance a non-negotiable.
To sum it up, you may think it’s tricky, but really, it all boils down to your hiring strategy, company culture, and employee satisfaction. Take a chance in improving these three and watch your investment in your people become an investment in your company. After all, the workforce is one of the most important success drivers for any organization.
