retention

Matt Hendershott
Culture, For Employers, Job Search Tips, Retention
January 18, 2023

The Most Effective Employee Retention Strategies

With the aftershocks of the Great Resignation still in play, many organizations have struggled to replace those lost workers. As worker wants and desires change, we’ll continue to see a shuffling as potential employees flock to places that can meet those desires. Smart organizations need a retention plan to keep their best employees engaged, satisfied, and willing to stay with the company.

Training a new employee can be an expensive affair—roughly twice their salary according to Visier. While you can’t prevent all employees from seeking greener pastures, creating a work culture people want to be a part of can limit the risk and help keep your best employees around. Embrace these modern strategies to encourage your top talent to stick around!

Have a good hiring process

Keeping your employees around starts before they even become your employees. Your hiring process sets the tone for the employee’s future with you, so the more transparent and accurate it is, the better.

Visier says to start with an accurate job preview and clear employee expectations. This means being honest about your culture and your potential employee’s role. Not every work environment and employee work style complement each other, and that’s okay. But if you’re dishonest, you’re setting yourself up for a messy breakup down the road.

A good onboarding process is likewise important to set the tone for a new hire’s early days.

Create a culture of value

Ultimately, an employee wants to feel like they fit in with the organization and that they matter to the parent company. A Pew study found that while low pay was the main reason people left their jobs (63% of respondents), feeling disrespected was a close second. 57% of respondents cited disrespect as a reason they left their job, with 35% claiming it was a primary reason.

“Your company likely has clear values and ideals in the handbook. Do you work on them to create a company that makes your employees proud? Maybe your company values equality, charitable acts or protecting the environment. Demonstrate those values through the work you do.” –Indeed

Take a deep look at your culture and how it treats its employees. Do your day-to-day operations align with the company mission statement? Are you recognizing employees for their accomplishments? This self-scouting is vital when asking why employees are leaving.

Focus on work-life balance

To create that culture, the work-life balance needs to not only be respected but prioritized. Pew found that 40% of respondents quit their job due to burnout—often caused by a lack of work-life balance. Combating burnout is an important step in maintaining employees.

Forbes’ Chauncey Crail lists remote work, flexible scheduling, and a reduced workweek as ways the modern organization can foster a healthy work-life balance. We’ve talked at length about how rejuvenating spirit that comes with remote work and how it can lead to better productivity. If you fear these concessions will be bad for your business, not only is that incorrect but you’ll be left in the dust as your competitors evolve.

Offer competitive benefits and invest in careers

Of course, even the happiest employees want to be paid what they are worth—no one is going to work for free.

The cost of living is high and grows at an exponential rate, and at the bare minimum, a company needs to keep up. But that’s not the only way to stay competitive. Ellie Taylor writes that as an employee takes on new roles and projects, they should be compensated for it. Taylor also adds that beyond base pay, retention bonuses, sales commissions, and additional bonuses after big projects will keep employees invested.

In addition to financial investment, investing in an employee’s career growth will keep them around. LinkedIn found that 94% of respondents would stay with a company longer if it assisted with their career growth. Emeritus lists mentorship programs and educational courses as ways to do so. We live in a skill-based career culture, and helping your employees gain the skills they need for a long and rewarding career will create skilled employees that can better help your organization.

“Today’s workforce wants to know what’s in store for their future and whether they can see themselves working with you long term. Stagnation can lead to disengagement, quiet quitting and eventually, actual quitting so provide your employees with opportunities to expand their skills and grow professionally.” –Lisa Shuster, Forbes

Learn from exit interviews

While these strategies are designed as a catch-all to help any organization, all companies are different and face different challenges. If you find you’re having trouble keeping people around, you need to pay closer attention to your exit interviews. Ellie Taylor mentions that many managers don’t see the workplace dynamic in action, especially if they’re busy. Exit interviews give you a better insight into how the employees view the organization. Taking these concerns seriously can lead to actionable results.

You may even learn what external factors are leading to turnovers. Your company may not be problematic, but if competitors are consistently offering higher salaries or benefits, it will give you something to think about.

Wrap up

Employees want more than money from their careers. They seek value and recognition and want to align with their employer’s vision. Keeping these simple ideas in mind is the core of any good retention strategy. Create a place of work that employees will want to stay with and make sure they’re invested in and rewarded properly and you’ll have an environment your top talent is happy to stay with.

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Jake Pshock
Career Advice, Culture, Data & Trends, For Employers, Remote Work, Retention
May 21, 2021

Employer Branding Strategy: Trends To Monitor in 2021

Employers: Does your brand effectively communicate the value your organization has to offer? Are you proud of your reputation in employee experience and employee satisfaction? It’s time you make the necessary adjustments to show your team how much you value their hard work, especially during the unpredictability of the pandemic. Furthermore, your acknowledgment and gratitude will often boost your team members’ mental well-being, thus improving productivity and encouraging them to show the validity of your kind words.

Many employers get wrapped up focusing on the consumer aspect of their brand, but there needs to be an equal focus on the viewpoint of employees and job-seekers. When a strong, healthy image is established through upheld core values, the quality and integrity within each employee will organically strengthen the company’s consumer brand.

Through a well-structured employer branding strategy, companies can propel their talent acquisition to an upper echelon of job-seekers and improve employee retention. The current shift in today’s workforce calls employers to go beyond the traditional employer branding strategies, i.e., an appealing website, five-star testimonials, and detailed job postings. Here are three workplace trends today’s employers need to closely monitor and implement to stand out as a top place to work:

Increased Workplace Health & Safety Protocols

As the restrictions surrounding businesses returning to the office are beginning to lift, the health and safety protocols remain at large. You can find the CDC’s up-to-date COVID-19 Office Building guidelines and restrictions here. People want to feel safe right now, and if you decide to reopen your office, it is your ultimate responsibility to make sure the proper measures are in place.

The necessary health and safety protocols go beyond in-office cleaning, sanitization, and social distancing. It is your responsibility to stay up to date with mental health trends by enhancing work-life balance benefits through flexible schedules, childcare assistance, and therapeutic resources. Showcase your call towards mental health awareness and wear it proudly. For the years ahead, establishing a supportive environment for your employees is crucial to retaining your top performers and attracting new ones.

Integration of Remotely Operating Employees

While some companies near a return to their traditional in-office capacity, others remain in the preliminary stages of that transition. Regardless, the concept of remote employees and Zoom conducted meetings are here to stay. Since companies across the country are making these remote hires, competition for top talent is greatly heightened. If you can adjust your vacant positions to operating on a remote or semi-remote basis, you will open your company to 26% of job-seekers that admit requiring a work-from-home option (via Career Builder). 33% of job-seekers also revealed they apply to jobs outside their location with the expectation they would be able to work from home.

As a result of the emphasis on remote-based positions, there is an increased value placed on company culture and reputation. Having a quick commute, provided lunches, or an office-with-a-view are much less valued with the hiring shift. The concerns of a remote employee surround topics such as lack of communication, flexibility in work hours, feelings of isolation, and the fear of office politics getting in the way of a promotion. As the employer, you must prioritize ensuring job stability and providing reassurance and fairness in performance reviews.

An Emphasis on Diversity & Inclusion

Companies that emphasize diversity and inclusion initiatives, such as fair treatment, equal opportunity, and education, will experience immense growth because of the different perspectives and ideas they invite. Consider implementing some of your employees as brand advocates, sharing their positive experiences and excitement about their job online. Your use of social media is a great tool to showcase your responsibility in building a more diverse and inclusive workplace. Conversely, any sign of discrimination that reveals a mark of privilege or bias will be immediately put under the spotlight and have intense ramifications.

In today’s contest for top talent, the career experts at Smarp stress the importance of attracting the right employees and looking beyond the traditional talent recruitment practices. Here are 10 of the top benefits Smarp lists as a result of diversity and inclusion in the workplace:

Accelerated Growth & Financial Performance
Boosted Innovation & Creativity
Improved Reputation
Improved Decision-Making
Higher Talent Attraction (67% of job seekers describe diversity as an important factor)
Increased Knowledge exchange
Increased Employee Engagement
Enhanced Employee Retention
Increased Employee Empowerment
Increased Employee Loyalty

BONUS Maintain Accurate Candidate Personas

With the high volume of job-seekers, it has become increasingly challenging to identify all-star candidates. By thoroughly defining your ideal candidate persona, you can more accurately compose your job description to align with your existing team members and culture. Analyze the resume of your current employees and inquire about the qualities that have made them successful. Take note of their demographics, educational and professional background, and any career goals they may have. Other critical questions include:

Adding to our three listed above, which job features were most important to them?
Were they passive or active job seekers?
What tools did they utilize to search for jobs?

Wrap Up

Don’t downplay the importance of focusing on your employer branding and how an effective strategy can impact your company for years to come. Like anything else, it takes hard work and intentionality, but establishing a new narrative through emphasized health and safety, remote integration, and diversity and inclusion will lead you to see your culture and employee output evolve over time.

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Bob Evans
For Employers
October 31, 2016

Is Your Company’s Management Style Impacting Hiring and Retention?

Times are changing in the employment world—not to be confused with Bob Dylan’s hit from back in 1964. As more and more Millennials not only filter into organizations, but are being promoted and taking prominent roles, companies are finding themselves in a peculiar situation.

Gone are the days of conforming to the “old way” of work flow and structure. As CareerBuilder recently detailed in a post titled “7 Surefire Employee Morale Killers,” tactics like: Threatening jobs, Micromanaging, Holding employees back and much more are not only killing employee morale in the workplace, but they also do not hold the weight they once did when it comes to the manager “getting their way.”

When I was a kid, I always remember family members complaining about work and how their bosses treated them. When I asked why they put up with it, the simple response was always the same, “I need to keep food on the table.”

In 2016, that same threat will only work to an extent. CareerBuilder put it best in the aforementioned article, “Threatening your employees’ jobs in order to motivate them will almost always have the opposite effect. Rather than feeling driven to perform well, they will be distracted by feelings of fear, anxiety or resentfulness for being made to feel disposable. Not only will this take a toll on morale, it will hurt productivity and lessen the quality of their work.”

As time goes on, the line between enforcing old company rules and adapting to change in order to attract and retain top talent are crossing over more and more. This is not saying you need to change everything to suit your employees and throw all of your own policies and values out the door, but there are three areas you should consider making changes to if you want to stand out as an “employer to work for” in 2017.

Flexible Scheduling

One of the most common reported issues with employers today is the enforcement of the strict “9 to 5” work schedule. Work-life balance has been at the forefront of many employment conversations over the years, in fact, in an article written on INC.com late last year—an intriguing trend is emerging.

“According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 20 million Americans actively choose part-time work. They’re not working fewer hours because they can’t find a full-time position; rather, they’re engaging in a deliberate, careful work-life balance. For most, working part-time is a result of simply not being able to commit to 9-to-5 jobs.”

Offering the ability to work from home on a regular schedule helps productivity.

The article continued, “When coming to work is about more than showing up, things get done. As an employer, one great way to offer flexibility is to allow your employees to work remotely when you don’t need them at the office, or to work nontraditional hours. When the employer’s focus is on the work being done, the employees can focus on meeting deadlines and producing good work – not on watching the clock tick the seconds until it’s time to go home.”

As someone who has worked in both arenas (companies with flexible scheduling and companies without), flexible scheduling is the way to go.

A good example is a previous employer that allowed employees to flex their hours even if they were salaried employees. Most companies would just say, “Hey, you worked longer today that is on you.” Instead, this company made it a point to tell employees they appreciated their efforts to meet a deadline or to stay later one night by saying, “Report to your manager how many hours you worked late today, or if you took a shorter lunch, and find a good day to flex those hours.”

Working in data analytics and content analysis, the first week of the month was always filled with early mornings and late nights to get all of the metrics ready for the company to evaluate and the sales teams to sell with. This also meant my 8:30-4:30 hours turned into 8-6:30 or 7 p.m. on most nights. It would not be out of the question to look down at the time sheet at the end of the week and see a big old +10-20 hours next to my name.

Instead of burning myself out, my bosses would allow me to flex that time (start a little later, leave a little earlier) the rest of the month because it helped avoid burn out.

Offer Free Food and Snacks

USA Today conducted a study last year which yielded results all employers should know. According to the study, “While the majority, 56%, of full-time employees are “extremely” or “very” happy with their current job, that number jumps to 67% among those who have access to free food, the survey of more than 1,000 full-time office workers found. Though just 16% of employees said they get free snacks and treats at work.”

When it comes to Millennials, they are a leader in the “food at work” movement. The presence of food in the workplace is actually a selling point for recruiting top-tier talent to your work place, according to the article. “Snacks may even lure employees to new companies: 48% of respondents said that if they were looking for a new job, they would weigh company perks, including availability of snacks, in their decision.”

Tech companies have long been known as the leaders in this movement, but they are not the only ones. The article noted that companies like “…Ann Taylor, Tesla and Visa,” are making major investments in food for employees. These companies have teamed up with NatureBox, a company that provides a snack subscription service.

Google is well known for offering free food offerings to their employees.

So, does the mean you need to start offering a full kitchen? Absolutely not—companies like Google are on a completely different level offering around the clock meals and free food for their employees.

What it does mean is that your company should consider becoming more progressive when it comes to food in the workplace, offer snacks to your employees—or at the very least allow them to bring their own snacks to munch on while doing their job. If an employee is spending time worrying about being hungry, they are likely spending less time worrying about doing their job while on the clock.

Better Bonus Structures

If you work in the sales world, commission and bonuses are a regular part of your vocabulary. You get the base salary for doing the “grunt work,” and then the reward comes when that contract is signed, sealed and delivered and your commission and bonus checks arrive the following month.

But what are you offering the rest of your employees who are executing the plans sold by the sales team?

This was something commonly stated by the digital and web team I worked on at a previous employer. The sales team would go out and land major advertising deals (which often included a lot of incentives) that the digital team would have to devote a lot of extra time to deliver. At the end of the month, the long hours put in to deliver these orders only did one thing for the digital team—overwork them.

As time went on and the sales team would see major bonuses and commissions, it was difficult to keep morale up on a digital team that was now tasked with finding ways to grow traffic more than they were expected to meet demand—with no incentive other than keeping their job. Something as simple as a small bonus structure for ensuring the sales team’s major oversell would have gone a long way—instead, over 50 percent of that team ended up moving on from the company.

What does this mean for your company? Find a way to allow all employees to share in the success. Continuing to receive a paycheck only goes so far, you need to show employees their efforts in executing and delivering are just as important as the efforts of those who are selling and getting those bonus checks.

Obviously money is known as the major motivator, but other rewards like giving them a half day on a Friday, free lunch and more could go a long way. I was not even in management at that old company, however, every time I went out and got pizza, cheezy bread and chicken dippers to share with the team as a surprise lunch after we crushed out a major digital deliverable, there was a noticeable uptick in team morale. Sometimes, it is the little things that keep employees happy, and could go a long way in helping you retain and attract top talent to your company.

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