The HR department of your business can be argued to be its most valuable assets. When we refer to a company’s human resources, we are largely referring to its employees; beginning with entry level personnel and going all the way to its senior management. However, most organizations do not start thinking about employee retention until it's too late and employees have one foot out of the door.
So how can you address this important issue in your business? Here are three simple strategies to start boosting your employee retention while also making your company more appealing to new talent.
Listen
Taking the time to understand and truly listen to your employees at all levels can make the difference between them leaving or having a long happy career at your organization. Employee meetings and staff surveys are useful tools to gain the employee’s views and let them be heard. Use of an employee survey can give insight into many areas including employee happiness and desired changes. Another tip is that you can always leave the option of making the surveys anonymous to protect employee identity and help them feel secure in being honest. However, it is not enough to just conduct surveys but you must also do take action.
Engage
Keeping your employees engaged and interested is vital if you want to confer to employees that they are a valuable part of the organisation. In 2016, only 32 percent of American employees felt engaged according to the Glassdoor Annual HR Statistics. Employee engagement policies and schemes are always a good place to start with and can also act as a way to motivate your employees.
Keeping an ongoing dialogue with your employees is critical in encouraging them to voice their opinions and feel comfortable in doing so. Here is where an open door policy comes in handy. It helps to foster that two-way communication with employees. This also applies among employees as well and you, as management, can help foster this. Help your employees get to know each other by planning employee social events such as employee lunches or welcome events for new members joining the team. Not only will employees feel more comfortable but this also helps to break the disconnect that can sometimes occur when a business grows.
Be Transparent
This strategy is one of the more feared and arguable ones but in reality, can make one of the largest impacts in improving your staff retention. Be honest with your employees about your company’s triumphs and failures alike. It is important to communicate any changes in company vision and aims and finally, to include employees in decision making. There are many reasons to embrace transparency with your employees including the all-important inclusion and trust factor for employees. Another benefit of transparency is that it lends itself to employee engagement. An employee engagement survey done by Harvard's Business Review in 2013 showed that 70 percent of respondents felt more engaged when their leaders continually communicated company strategies.
These three strategies are just some of many you can employ in your bid to improve your employee retention and can be done immediately. While all strategies need to be adapted to your business and industry, with a little innovation and adaptation they can certainly help you get on the path of employee happiness.
I hope you enjoyed this article about strategies you can utilize to increase your company's employee retention rates.
Interested in more articles about human resources and recruiting?
Read My Posts:
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Published by Michael J Schiemer
Owner of Bootstrap Business
Money - Marketing - Motivation
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