Optimized employee retention strategies are imperative to the success of any business. No matter the size or funding status, high employee turnover can take a toll on any company’s bottom line.
In fact, according to Gallup, replacing an employee can cost a company up to twice that employee’s annual salary. This, coupled with the opportunity cost of recruiting, onboarding, and training a new employee, is reason enough to convince any employer to get serious about employee retention.
Reimagined Experiences has always prioritized employee recruitment and retention—it’s at the core of what we do. We’ve put together this guide on why businesses can’t afford to overlook employee retention.
Employee Retention Strategies After the Great Resignation
In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the US workforce experienced what’s now referred to as the Great Resignation. Employees voluntarily left their jobs at an unprecedented rate, which destabilized the economy and left employers with a duty to invest more seriously in employee retention strategies. This sudden volatility in the labor market created effects that experts believe we’ll experience for years to come.
Talent is a finite resource, and employee turnover is expensive. Employers must get creative with employee engagement to avoid burnout at all costs.
Navigating a Shifting Labor Landscape
The pandemic dramatically shifted our perceptions about remote work. Companies have realized the numerous benefits that accompany working from home, and statistics suggest that remote and hybrid work models are here to stay.
Switching to remote and hybrid work has had profound effects on the entire economy—91% of employees report not wanting to return to full-time in-person work. The impact that this remote work revolution has had cannot be overstated. Although it has its challenges, remote work has opened up a world of possibilities in the realm of employee engagement.
Digital Experiences Trends: A Popular Way to Engage
By now, most of us are used to interacting with our workplace (including coworkers) in a remote setting. However, when it comes to employee engagement, this shift also presents a massive opportunity: digital experiences for employee engagement.
Digital Experiences Help Engage and Retain Employees
Gone are the days when the simple annual holiday party could constitute a business’s entire employee retention strategy. While throwing events of any kind shouldn’t be overlooked, companies are going to have to go above and beyond to ensure their mission-critical personnel don’t just walk off the job.
Digital experiences are a powerful way to solve this problem. When planning virtual events, you’re not limited to the time and space constraints that come along with planning an in-person event. There’s so much room for creativity and innovation that can take the typical employee appreciation events to the next level.
In a State of Enterprise Video study, almost all (93%) of the nearly 200 HR professionals surveyed reported that video content is in effective tool to engage employees. This is significant, as companies will undoubtedly utilize virtual content for employee engagement purposes in the future. This opens the door for a radically new approach to showing employees how much they matter.
Experiences Over Events
To engage and retain employees in a meaningful way, we need to completely reimagine employee appreciation events. Reimagined Experiences champions this idea. We opt for experiences—not just events.
Compared with traditional (pre-COVID) employee appreciation events, there’s substantial room for possibilities when it comes to digital experiences, especially regarding employee recruitment and retention.
The Importance of Events at Work
Wondering why events are important? With nearly one in five employees reporting burnout at work, there’s never been a greater need for employers to show their appreciation of their employees.
There’s no shortage of ideas for employee events, with rich, meaningful experiences being the most effective. In fact, companies that prioritize employee recognition events have much higher rates of employee retention. This means less turnover, less time spent in training and onboarding, and more time spent pursuing your organization’s overall mission.
Why Virtual Employee Experiences Matter
In-person events can get expensive. There’s a reason companies don’t do them properly (or simply skip them altogether). When faced with the costs of securing a venue, accommodations, food, drink, and entertainment, any employer would wonder if the cost is truly worth the benefit.
The solution? Digital experiences: virtual events that employees attend from the comfort of their home office. Employers need not break the bank by throwing lavish parties to show their appreciation for their teams.
Here are some ideas for employee events that can be done 100% virtually:
- Award ceremonies
- Custom video presentations
- Raffles and prizes
- Workshops
- Games
- Virtual happy hours
- Keynote speakers
Benefits of Digital Employee Experiences
There’s been a sharp uptick in the popularity of virtual experiences over the past few years, but research shows that virtual events are here to stay. Wise employers recognize the utility of 100% digital experiences and the value they provide to the company and its workforce.
Here are just some of the benefits of virtual employee appreciation events:
- Wide reach – Geographical distance is a non-issue here. Employees who are sick or traveling can still attend.
- Evergreen – The event can be broadcast live, saved, and later viewed on demand.
- Richer experiences – Keynote speakers can be patched in from anywhere. This opens access to a larger pool of potential speakers and cuts the cost of their travel and accommodations.
- Multipurpose – Branded company experiences can be later repurposed for marketing, HR, and recruitment materials, including digital employee onboarding.
- Efficient – Virtual events have a much faster turnaround time than live ones.
- Cost-effective – Digital experiences have low production costs compared to traditional employee recognition events.
How to Get Started With Virtual Experiences
Now you understand the utility of digital experiences when it comes to employee retention strategies. Need to know how to get started?
Reimagined Experiences is an experiential marketing and event production agency that specializes in virtual experiences. We’ve taken a groundbreaking approach to event production. We use top-notch content creation, video production, and innovation to produce highly engaging experiences your employees won’t soon forget.
Book a complimentary call with us now to get started.
