10 Effective Employee Retention Strategies for a Switched-on Workforce

The HR World’s Swift Guide to Employee Retention Strategies

While the Great Resignation and Great Reshuffles may have subsided, the importance for employers to hold onto the talent they have is unquestionable. The cost of replacing staff is high – not just financially (between one half to double the employee’s annual salary) but losing staff can also result in lower morale within those who remain, a poorer image and reputation for the business as a whole, as well as a compromised experience for customers. And at the end of the day, if you recognise your employees effectively, retention can be controlled.

So how can employee turnover be prevented? The fact is there will always be some people leaving an organisation – indeed some level of turnover is healthy. Organisations need new ideas, energy and people, if only to replace those lost to retirement. But without a clear strategy for keeping people, talent and industry knowledge within a business, any success is likely to be short-lived.

In today’s multigenerational workforce, retention best practices need to be flexible and sensitive to the particular desires and priorities of employees. To be successful, organisations need to be aware of these differences and have retention programs in place which ensure every employee is shown how much they matter to the business and that they are appreciated for the value they bring.

At the end of the day, delivering a clear and effective retention strategy means providing sufficient pull factors to keep employees engaged and ready to work.

1. Flexible working

Post-pandemic there can be few organisations who do not offer some level of flexible working for their employees. Indeed, employees now have the right to ask for flexible work, and it is set to become a ‘day one’ right in 2025. Flexible work enables employees to combine the work they do for the business with other aspects of their lives, thereby creating a healthy work-life balance and increasing their sense of fulfilment. With a good balance and sufficient reward employees are more likely to show loyalty and stay with their employer rather than look for other opportunities.

2. Flexible location

Again, the pandemic taught businesses that employees did not always need to be at their place of work to do good work. The technology now exists to keep everyone in the loop and engaged with work wherever they may be. Depending on the work and therefore the contact required between employer and employee, some employees can even deliver for the company from another country. Making this work requires good management skills across the business as team and project work can be more challenging in these circumstances. Attention also needs to be given to the technology side of the equation – keeping people connected securely and effectively, so they can do the work required.

3. Higher pay

When it comes down to it pay and reward still ranks highly in retaining top talent. Pay difference can be the deciding factor for where talent goes, and the cost-of-living crisis has made this particularly important across all levels of employees. Employers can also be creative in other area of reward, offering flexible benefit packages to its workforce. This approach can be particularly effective with the multigenerational workforce since it enables each employee the chance to align what they get out of work with their own desires and motivations. Flexible rewards and benefits can also key into specific stages of life – what is required by new parents, for example, will be different to that required by those approaching retirement.

4. Flexible pay (prompt pay)

Again, the cost-of-living crisis has brought new emphasis to the way in which individuals receive the remuneration they’ve earned from work. It used to be the case that employees would have to wait until a specific pay day before they saw any reward for the work they’d done. However, in some instances this waiting time can be reduced significantly. Financial and payroll technology has been able to give employers the power to pay their employees quicker – sometimes hours after a shift has finished. This prompt payment is clearly attractive to employees and can therefore have an impact on where they choose to work.

5. Workplace Culture

Workplace Culture is extremely important for retaining employees and employee retention rate. People spend a considerable amount of their lives at work, so it has to be a place they want to come to, a place that recognises them, welcomes them and includes them. Getting the workplace culture right will attract and retain the people you need for success – it’s a sort of self-fulfilling feedback loop – create the culture you want for your employees, and they will stay in the company, thereby further contributing to and perpetuating that successful culture.

6. Employee Wellbeing

Employers are now expected to look after their employees in ways that go beyond the pay packet. Health and wellbeing has become a crucial part of any employer’s benefit package – not simply because it’s nice for employees but because initiatives here can have a huge impact on employee productivity and retention. Wellbeing is generally structured around four ‘pillars’: financial, mental, social and physical. Across these areas employers can offer a wide range of resources: gym and other memberships, discount offers, support resources, helplines, clubs and so on.

Employee benefits for your workforce

At our podcast episode Employee Benefits: How to Stop Wasting Money we looked at ensuring your workforce is happy, healthy and motivated has become a complicated and expensive matter. Multiple generations, diverse workers, hybrid working all means delivering coherent benefits offering that is useful and accessible is a serious challenge.

The more varied the resources offered the more chance there is that an employer will engage and support a multigenerational workforce. In this way they can retain the right talent across the board and reduce employee burnout.

7. Training and professional development

No one wants to stand still in life so training and development resources can have a huge impact on whether an employee stays with an organisation or feels they need to move on. This can be a double-edged sword – investing in someone’s skills and knowledge may be expensive if even then they simply take those skills and move on to another job, but as has also been pointed out, isn’t it worse if you don’t invest in their skills, and they stay in the organisation? For training and development initiatives to work for employees the employer needs to be clear as to the level and type of opportunities they have within their business. Does the workplace actually have development /promotion opportunities that will keep that talent within the business? Can talent be moved around the organisation to give them new challenges, to unite other interests, put emphasis on teamwork and more? Progression is a great retention tool, but at the end of the day the employer needs to be honest and give real opportunities that satisfy their talent.

8. ESG/Work with purpose

Pay may be important, but employees also want to know that what they do for a living is a positive activity. Arguably this aspect of work has become more important among the younger generations in the workplace – people for whom impact on the planet and ‘doing good’ is particularly important. That said work needs to have a purpose in order to promote engagement with the workforce and to get their dedicated skills and attention.

9. Onboarding and new hires

The first experiences of a new employee can have a huge impact on their ongoing experience of the workplace. If getting into the job is a complex, admin heavy, confusing experience it will taint that employee’s experience of work going forward. Bringing talent into an organisation needs to be done with confidence, and handle efficiently, ensuring every newcomer knows where they need to be, what they’re expected to do and how their work is going to contribute to the business as a whole.

At The HR World’s webinar on onboarding our speakers agreed on the importance of this event in the employment relationship and delved into ways in which companies can make the occasion more efficient, enjoyable and impactful.

10. Exit strategy

Losing employees is a fact of life, but it’s also an opportunity to learn. On the one hand a good exit strategy should include an exit interview in which employees can feedback on their experience of working for the organisation, the positives and negatives and their overall feelings of what it has been like to work there. Any information gleaned from this can be acted upon, thereby addressing any significant issues as well as re-emphasing and investing in the positive areas that employees appreciate. However, a good exit strategy goes beyond this. If the process of leaving an employer is a positive one – a sense of appreciation, good will and best wishes for the future – then that employee’s view and experience of the employer will be entirely positive. This in turn will play well for attracting and retaining employees as the employer gains a great reputation for being fair and good to its employees.

FAQs

How can I tell if my employee retention rates are good or a problem?

There are varies sources that will give you an insight into retention rates in your sector and for companies such as yours. These can vary from the ONS to HR representative bodies to specific industry studies and independent research. In each case it is unlikely that you will find data that directly corresponds to your circumstance, but there will be enough ‘like for like’ data to show how your organisation compares.

What are the easiest ways I can affect retention?

There may be some ‘low-hanging fruit’ you can address such as reward and remuneration – simply offering someone, or a group of employees, better pay may be enough to turn the tide. However, it is likely that such measures will only ever be short lived. A retention issue may have more to do with company culture and the experience of working for a business. As such, changing retention figures is likely to be a longer term project.

My industry has always had high turnover among employees, shouldn’t I just accept that?

It may be that the nature of the work you offer and the type of people who take those jobs mean staff turnover has a tendency to be high, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should accept it. Even industries where there is ‘naturally’ high turnover, it may be of benefit that you invest in retention strategies that change the game. Consider the value to your business if employees stay for longer – on the one hand it will cost your business less, but also you’ll retain knowledge and skills and therefore could build a better experience for your customer and brand for your business.

In Conclusion

When it comes to retention data is always going to be your friend. Unless you have a good view over who is leaving, where in the organisation they are leaving from and why they might be leaving you may not realise there are difficulties or problems in the business that need addressing. Dealing with people leaving the organisation may seem difficult and challenging, but it can also teach you a lot about your business, and indeed about the sector you’re working in. Comparing what’s happening in your organisation with what’s going on elsewhere is a powerful way to identify areas of improvement – whether that’s a question of addressing the way people are recognised and rewarded, the impact of line management style or even just what it’s like to do a particular job.