Employee retention is an important factor in any successful business. A 90% employee retention rate is the goal, but in 2021, the average was just under 53%. Employers must take proactive steps to ensure employees remain engaged and motivated. Specifically, implementing employee engagement and retention strategies will help you reduce turnover.
Why Employee Retention Is Important
Employee retention is the rate at which a company keeps its employees and minimizes turnover, primarily through job satisfaction. Retaining employees is imperative because the cost of onboarding can quickly add up, often totaling one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. It’s in the company’s best interest to do everything possible to retain employees and avoid the costs associated with turnover.
The Great Resignation is often brought up when talking about employee retention. The Great Resignation refers to when employees were quitting their jobs in record-breaking numbers during and after the height of the pandemic. The competition to hire and retain good employees is bigger than ever — that’s why employee retention is important. If this is something your company struggles with, continue reading to learn how to retain top talent.
9 Employee Engagement and Retention Strategies
We’ve compiled a few key employee engagement and retention strategies. While this list isn’t comprehensive and organizations implement other unique strategies to retain employees, we know these nine methods work for most businesses.
1. Onboarding and Orientation
To keep employees on the team, you must get them comfortable with the company and their specific job during orientation. We recommend creating onboarding videos to train new team members. This improves employee satisfaction because you’ve set them up for success in their new role.
An onboarding video introduces new hires to a company’s culture and values. With the virtual introduction, they feel part of the team immediately. Make sure to include relevant information all new hires could benefit from so you can reuse these videos.
2. Employee Compensation and Perks
Employee compensation should be competitive for the job and the organization size. Compensation is a huge deciding factor for many people when choosing to accept a new job. Competitive compensation will reduce the likelihood of recruiters outbidding you during the interview process or after your new hires have joined the company.
Perks also help to improve employee satisfaction. While they don’t typically make or break an experience at a company, they tend to make the employee feel valued and appreciated. Incorporate perks like complimentary office snacks or meals, team events, and annual bonuses throughout the year.
3. Communication
Most people have experienced poor communication within an organization, which can create stress among employees. Establishing lines of communication that ensure effective collaboration, as well as keeping people informed on changes within the organization, is largely how to keep employees happy.
4. Feedback on Performance
Give employees a chance to provide feedback on their colleagues’ performance and receive feedback on theirs. Peer reviews are powerful tools to keep employees accountable. Allow each person to feel heard in their ideas, frustrations, and opinions. This is especially important in large organizations. It’s common for employees of large companies to feel overlooked; empower them to share feedback with leadership and each other.
5. Training and Professional Development Opportunities
One of the benefits of employee retention is that your team members will continue to improve in their roles. Providing professional development and training opportunities allows employees to grow even further. Offer opportunities such as:
- Lunch and learn guest speakers
- Attendance at conferences and summits
- Enrollment in an online course
- Certifications related to their role
Not only will they feel invested in, but their job performance will improve.
6. Recognition
Everyone loves to be recognized for their accomplishments. Employee recognitions bring people together because they feel appreciated for their contributions to company-wide goals. A few ways to recognize the accomplishments of employees are to:
- Share info about the employee on social media
- Give a shout-out in a meeting or an email
- Send a gift to an employee
- Write a card for the employee
- Throw a party for your team
Mix in professional and personal recognition, too! Offer employees the time to share positive personal news, such as engagements, pregnancies, or home purchases.
7. Work-Life Balance
Employees are searching for work-life balance, especially in the days following COVID-19. To provide flexibility, encourage setting boundaries regarding working hours, working from home or having a hybrid schedule, and taking allotted time off. Traditionally, many workplaces were strict about making work everyone’s number-one priority. Those days are over, and work-life balance is how to retain top talent and help them avoid burnout.
8. Effective Change Management
Change disrupts routines and can make employees uneasy if it’s not properly managed and prepared for. Leading change must come from top leadership and leverage the existing company culture. Bring people together to implement change within the organization and allow them to ask questions, and it will go smoothly.
9. An Emphasis on Teamwork
Encourage people to work together on projects. Working in a silo cuts people off from the organization. Remote work makes this challenging, but tools like Microsoft Teams, Asana, and Slack make collaboration and communication simple.
Change in the Workplace
Change in the workplace is inevitable, so it’s important to be open to it. Retention methods that have worked in the past may no longer be applicable. Companies must understand their employees’ needs so they can address them.
These nine employee engagement and retention strategies have worked for many organizations, and they could for you, too! Discuss changing your processes and systems to improve employee satisfaction. Reduced onboarding costs, better employee experience, improved culture, and more are benefits of employee retention. It’s worth it to invest in your employees.
Reimagined Experiences is here to teach you about the power of video in employee retention efforts. If you’re ready to get started, schedule a free 30-minute discovery call with us. We’re here to support you.
