Let’s be honest, hiring can be a tedious process. With the unemployment rate in the UK at 4.1% (as of Jan 2018), employers have to compete for high-quality employees. In order to find and attract quality candidates, it requires work from recruiters and companies alike. This can range from collecting metrics at various stages in the employee life-cycle or tailoring company benefits to target desired candidates. We explored how to step up retaining candidates and employees.
#1 Manage Your Employee Turnover
As an employer, you need to implement retention strategies to manage your employee turnover. Your programs should focus on understanding the relationship between management and workers. Understanding what drives your employees away from your business can help you identify where you need to drive change. You may need to utilise feedback you receive from exit interviews and focus groups to improve employee relations and ultimately reduce turnover. Competitive pay, company benefits, employee recognition and development programs are often strategies to maintain internal satisfaction. Employees should be considered the company’s most valuable asset – the backbone of the organisation. Forward thinking businesses are giving employees freedom, a healthy work-life balance, incredible perks, and even the chance to have fun at work. Google pioneered these values!
#2 Time Is Money
Companies can significantly benefit from your employee retention programs. High employee turnover can be costly for your business, according to the Society for HR management, replacing a candidate can reach as high as 50/60 percent of the candidate’s salary. Strategies that are geared towards retaining good workers, help offset employee replacement costs. Employee retention practices help support organisational productivity. When it comes to recruiting and training a new employee, we all know how long it can take for them to get into the swing of things. There is still a learning curve most employees must overcome before their work becomes efficient. Taking the necessary steps to prevent unhappy workers will ensure productivity is not interrupted.
Don’t overlook the cost of reduced morale from other workers either from having to cover the workload of the employee who left or disruption to team dynamics.
There is a high cost to employee turnover. The higher the employee turnover rate the higher the cost. Shrewd companies work hard to measure employee fulfilment and act accordingly to minimize turnover. It is cheaper to keep your current employees motivated and productive than it is to find, hire, and train new ones.
#3 How Can I Improve Retention?
The first thing to do is to sit down and understand what’s driving your employees to leave. Is it the lack of job fulfilment? Is there a bad balance between work and life? Is there a lack of development opportunities? There are many reasons that can push your employees to leave. 10 top influencers on retention are (not in this order);
1. On-boarding and orientation
2. Mentorship programs
3. Employee compensation
4. Recognition and rewards systems.
5. Work-life balance
6. Training and development
7. Communication and feedback
8. Dealing with change
9. Fostering teamwork
10. Team celebration
Going forward, ensuring that your employees feel valued and proud of the work they do, this can help improve your brand reputation and can improve your retention. The top 2% of talent creates exponential value for companies. If you can develop a business culture that encourages diversity, creativity and flexible working, you’re onto a good thing. Ensure that you implement all of the above successfully, and you’re onto something brilliant!
Businesses are well aware of the impact turnover has on a business’s bottom line. TalentWise found that Millennial are departing their employers every two and a half years. It takes around eight months to get an employee to maximum productivity, therefore creating an exceptionally short window for ROI. More than ever, companies must move rapidly to engage and capture employee loyalty!
Good luck!
Executive Partnerships is a specialist EA, PA, and business support recruitment consultancy. If you’re looking for help finding your next superstar or searching for new opportunities, get in touch. Visit ExecutivePartnerships.co.uk for more information.
