Retention of productive employees is a major concern for all businesses. It is more efficient and cost-effective to retain a quality member of staff than to recruit, train and orient a replacement employee of the same high quality.

According to latest research findings, the majority of employees find the relationship with their senior management or supervisor to coincide with their job satisfaction. Most importantly, employees want to feel respected and to have a mutual trust between themselves and management. Compensation and benefits, job security, job opportunities, and recognition are also at the top of the list of contributors to job satisfaction.

Employees leave their role for other reasons besides money such as:

• Lack of career opportunities and advancement
• Need more challenging work
• Unhappy with compensation
• Issues with management
• Unclear expectations
• No work life balance

Addressing these factors with each member of staff is a crucial part of the employee retention strategy, but can sometimes be forgotten or left at the bottom of the priority to do list. By talking to your employees to find out what is most important to them can help construct and direct a strategy in order to keep them happy by providing a personalised approach. If, for example, recognition is important to an individual, then managers can take action to incorporate an employee scheme where individuals are recognised for completion of certain projects or have met target criteria that month.

The reward of focusing on employee retention such as increased performance, productivity, employee morale and quality of work, plus a reduction in both turnover and employee-related problems—is well worth the investment of time and financial resources. This can also aid employee referral schemes as well.

Here are 5 top tips towards employee retention:

1. Get to know your employees
2. Create an employee centred environment
3. Reward and recognise good work / top performers
4. Provide effective leadership and supervision
5. Encourage and provide opportunities for development

Another idea to consider is to conduct stay interviews. We recently wrote a blog about it here. In addition to performing exit interviews to learn why employees are leaving, consider asking current employees what they enjoy about the role and the company in general to gage an idea on what is important to everyone.

Employers need to listen to employees’ needs and implement retention strategies to make employees feel valued and engaged in order to keep them. While the ability to attract and recruit talent is vital to any company’s success – many companies fail to create an effective employee retention scheme to maintain and withhold the current employees who share the same beliefs and ‘fit’ within the company culture. If you are in need of support in this area, please do not hesitate to get in touch today.