Attracting and retaining talents is one of the most intense challenges faced by HR professionals. It is now a bigger conundrum in the New Normal of global economic uncertainties and COVID-19 endemic phase.
According to Work Institute’s 2017 Retention Report, it costs an employer an average of 33% of an employee’s yearly salary for their exit. Besides, the 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that the overall turnover rate in the USA is 57.3% — 25% voluntary, 29% involuntary, and 3% of high-performers.
6 Strategies to Help You Retain Talent
Hire the Right People
Retaining talents starts with hiring the right people – employees with a positive attitude and competency that match their job role. These model employees are the main productivity contributors and they tend to stay longer in an organisation.
Before screening applicants, determine the facets of culture and policy you want to highlight. Then, select candidates with characteristics that match your requirements.
Encourage Commitment Through Strong Company Culture
Employees tend to stay longer at organisations where they are aligned with the values, vision, and mission that form the company culture. Hence, it is important to share your organisational story with employees.
Additionally, run surveys about what they expect of a company culture and implement positive change where necessary.
Offer Professional Training and a Clear Path to Personal Growth
Providing training opportunities is one of the biggest motivators for your “people” to stay with you. According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workforce Learning report, 94% of employees stay at a job longer if they receive employee development opportunities.
Ideally, these opportunities should be tailor-made into individual career development programmes as a powerful incentive to encourage long-term commitment from the employee. The longer someone’s with your company, the more productive they become over time.
Implement a Flexible Work Setting
As more countries enter the COVID-19 endemic phase, the workplace has evolved from forced remote work to hybrid in-office and remote environments.
Accenture’s Future of Work Study 2021 indicates that 83% of workers surveyed wanted the future of work to be hybrid. They find the flexible arrangement to be more thriving, as compared to a full onsite setting. So, companies must be more strategic when applying their hybrid model to ensure that it works for everyone.
Build Efficient Communication Channels
Create avenues for two-way communication between employees and the management, such as townhalls and feedback channels. Likewise, it is necessary to build a platform for employees to share their ideas among the team and for inter-department communication.
Frequent and open communication helps employees feel connected to their organisation through better understanding of the company’s goals and vision.
Perform Regular Benefits and Compensation Reviews
Conduct benefits and compensation reviews annually and refine it every six months; or as often as market supply and demand shifts happen. For example, some companies have added health and wellness benefits for employees since the COVID-19 outbreak.
Adopt a consultative approach, and always keep employees informed when the revised schemes are finalised. Even if the message may not be what the employees expect, the communication will likely increase your employees’ attachment to the organisation.
Employee retention rate directly impacts a company’s overall business. With COVID-19 thrusting the world into the future of work, is your business feeling the impact of the “Great Resignation”?
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