Keeping your best employees is not easy these days. The workplace is evolving, and job hopping is common practice for millennials. In this blog post, you will learn 9 tips for keeping your best employees.
The way past generations looked at employment is vastly different from the way it’s being viewed today.
The workplace is evolving, and job hopping is common practice for millennials.
Because of this, employers who want to be successful at finding and hiring ideal job candidates have to start using new, innovative recruiting strategies to attract top young talent.
Besides recruiting the best people for your company, you also have to nurture an engage your talent to stop them from leaving. You certainly don’t want to spend your time and effort training people who will leave the job after a few months!
So how can you keep your best employees?
In this blog post, I will outline a few best practice tips on how to do it.
Here are the top 9 tips for keeping your best employees:
It all begins with hiring the right person for the right position. Job descriptions should be comprehensive and updated frequently. Those doing the hiring will need to assess job candidates thoroughly and make sure they have the skills and personality to cope with the job and fit in with the culture of the company.
If you’re in the service industry, you should hire employees who understand what service entails and enjoy it. If you’re hiring for supervisory or managerial positions, it’s crucial to hire trained professionals as this will decrease job turnover. If you’re looking for part-time employees, partnering with universities and colleges can help you to find top quality candidates.
If employees feel as though they have hit a wall or don’t see a future within the company, they will look for better opportunities elsewhere. If you enable them to acquire more skills and progress in their careers, they are far more likely to remain loyal.
Career development prospects and mentorship are attractive to the most talented employees. They would rather stay at a company offering them this than go to another company offering them a higher salary. One way to encourage them to keep progressing is to make it easier for them to study and do assignments. You can reimburse tuition fees and give them paid study leave before exams.
Meredith Bodgas from Assignment Masters shares a golden rule for keeping your employees satisfied:
Value your employees and they will value your customers.
It’s crucial to create a fair and transparent evaluation system to assess growth and recognize achievements regularly. The best employees will want to be challenged and feel as though they are growing.
Companies that offer the most benefits to their employees are more likely to keep them. Many surveys reveal that health benefits are most important, followed by retirement funds. With the costs of healthcare rising, a strong employee health benefit plan is essential to recruit top talent.
Wellness programs offer health information and help employees to understand more about their health risk factors and make positive changes. This can improve productivity and reduce absenteeism.
As the economy fluctuates and pension plans no longer exist, employees are looking for ways to plan for retirement. Employers could help contribute to savings by offering a 401k match. This could be a great motivator for staying at a company.
Employers that offer generous paid off-time avoid burnout and retain their employees more successfully. Employees appreciate a possibility to take a break without being punished. Many employees value this more than a higher salary! Other important benefits are performance bonuses, paternity/maternity leave and flexible work hours.
If employees trust that a company is moving in the right direction, they are less likely to leave. Open communication is essential to build that trust and will cultivate a sense of ownership throughout a company. The new style of leadership does not rely on power to force people to do what they want. It relies on relationship, transparency, and trust.
Your workforce can clearly see when your motives are selfish or opportunistic and they are less likely to support you. You need to be able to persuade your employees to collaborate with you in pursuit of the company’s mission.
You can help send the message that you trust your employees by asking them to take on important tasks. This may involve asking someone to run an important meeting for you or to give a presentation.
A work environment that makes people feel included and celebrates diversity will encourage employees to stay. Shared workspaces are becoming popular, replacing the gray, permanent cubicles of the past and collaboration is the name of the game.
Employees want to enjoy where they work. More companies are looking at the office environment and trying to make it more attractive to retain top talent. Onsite fitness centers, for example, have become common in many workplaces where people are required to sit for many hours in front of a computer every day.
Employees don’t have to dread going into the office when it has some great amenities such as free coffee and snacks, a pool table or a zen room. Celebrations of birthdays, parties as a reward for successful projects and happy hours on a Friday can help to create a positive working environment.
Work-life balance has become more important to employees than ever before. You need to acknowledge that your employees have a life outside of work. If you consistently make them come in early and work after office hours, they will inevitably start looking for other jobs.
With the ability to work remotely, it has become easier for people to work without having to go into the office. Working remotely offers the kind of flexibility that employees want. A flexible schedule is often crucial to two working parents. It does not mean that they won’t work the same number of hours, but that they can manage their work outside of normal work hours. They will often work more hours than the bare minimum if they are allowed this option.
Traditionally the lines between work and home were very distinct. It used to be considered inappropriate for bosses to ask questions about their employees’ personal lives. Today, acknowledging that your employees are well-rounded individuals and checking in on them without just talking about work, shows that you care about them as people.
Many bosses don’t realize the importance of communicating with employees and making them feel connected. Their response to emails from employees may just consist of a word or two and many times they may not even respond at all.
People are addicted to feedback today – when we press a button, something happens, when we send a text message, we get a response, when we play a game, we get a score. Employees often experience a lack of feedback when they get into the office. They don’t know how they are doing and this makes them uncomfortable. It helps to periodically conduct interviews with employees to find out how things are going. When you listen to them, it shows that you value them.
There are many small ways to show that you value you your employees. Just acknowledging their contribution and saying ‘thank you’ can make a big difference.
This does not mean you have to go around complimenting employees all the time, but if someone does an excellent job on a project, it should be recognized. Companies with a strategic recognition program report less employee turnover.
Small perks such as free meals, free parking and rotating shift scheduling all help to increase morale. Rewards for a job well done may come in various forms, such as a bonus check or a voucher for a meal in a restaurant.
The best way to manage is often to give your employees clear direction, allow them plenty of space to do what they have to do and offer feedback. They may approach their work in a completely different way than you, but this should not matter as long as they get the results.
If you want to know what employees are doing all the time, they feel they are not trusted and are more likely to leave. Employers who have all kinds of petty rules and regulations stand the risk of losing employees to competitors. They have these rules because they fear a drop-in productivity but employees are often at their creative best when they are relaxed and allowed to get on and get the work done.
Keeping your best employees takes serious effort.
First, you need to make your organization talent-worthy. Then, you need to motivate your employees and ensure their high engagement.
However, it is well worth putting in some time and effort, because employee engagement is the key to better business results.
Hillary Hope is the co-founder of a startup tech company and currently works from her home office. She has had articles featured in major publications. She has a special interest in the changes taking place as floods of millennials enter the workplace.
