Employee Retention has never been more important for organizations to thrive in today's world. 87% of HR managers agree that employee retention is their top priority. With the great resignation in full effect, the numbers on employee turnover have skyrocketed - 31% of employees quit before 6 months and more than 50% of employees claim to be disengaged at work, according to a report by Teamstage. Organizations have had to rethink their retention strategies to compete with the best in the industry, keep their costs level-headed, and most importantly, grow! This brings us to the question:
- What is Employee Retention?
- Why does Employee Engagement matter for Employee Retention?
- What are the most effective Employee Retention Strategies Post-Pandemic?
What is Employee Retention?
Employee Retention is the organizational objective of maintaining skilled people and lowering employee turnover by boosting employee engagement, showing appreciation for their well-being, and encouraging a healthy work-life balance. (Read more on Employee Retention and its importance here). Happily helps companies retain their best talent by encouraging engagement with:
- Daily pulse surveys - build trust and alignment with your team and manager.
- Continuous feedback and recognition - Lack of feedback, recognition, and poor communication are facets of poor leadership and management, which happens to be the #1 reason for Employee turnover.
- Promoting learning and knowledge-sharing opportunities - 76% of new employees desire on-the-job training. Organizations with high turnover rates often neglect this. Happily encourages learning and provides training opportunities for all employees through our platform.
Why does Employee Engagement matter for Employee Retention?
Employee Engagement is a concept that has been gaining traction in recent times. In fact, we have seen a lot of organizations aggressively pushing their employees to be more engaged in their work and to perform at their best. The reason for this is simple: an engaged employee is more likely to perform better and stay longer in the organization.
Employee Engagement can be defined as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their workplace. It is directly related to individual and organizational performance and often leads to positive workplace outcomes such as better retention, productivity, loyalty, and profitability. Engaged employees are likely to stay longer in their jobs, yield higher productivity and drive higher customer satisfaction - all desirable outcomes for organizations!
However, one of the leading causes of employee turnover is the opposite: it's disengaged employees. Disengaged employees are detrimental to organizational growth; they bring down morale and set poor examples. Moreover, Employee Turnover Statistics indicate that 73% of employees would have remained at their company had there been more skill-building opportunities, and only 12% agreed that their company did a great job of onboarding them. Both of these elements, skill-building, and onboarding, reflect the level of employee engagement (or lack thereof) in a company. A lack of emphasis by management on engagement leads to decreased morale and increased turnover, which is extremely costly and reduces the employee retention rate. (Try our Employee Engagement ROI Calculator to see how much unwanted turnover is costing your company!)
So how do you go about building an engaged workforce that meets organizational objectives?
The HR team at a Global Insurance Company was looking to implement a culture change and increase employee engagement, targeting their most challenging business units in the short term. Their goal was to initiate participation and activity for employees that were traditionally most resistant to engagement.
After working with Happily for 6 months, here are some of the results they achieved:
a) Overall company happiness increased by 22% after 6 months
b) Wellness success score increased from 45% to 63%, resulting in a reduction of absenteeism by 18%!
c) 94% of employees reported an increase in manager interaction
d) Recognition success score increased from 35% to 78%, with a 92% participation rate for peer-to-peer recognition and 80% for manager-to-team recognition.
Here are 5 most effective Employee Retention Strategies for 2022:
1. Creating an Empowered Feedback Culture:
Empowering your employees means giving them the freedom to make decisions based on their knowledge, experience, and skillset - all within the framework of company policies & procedures. It also means giving them room to grow within their roles by providing opportunities for training & development as well as providing feedback about performance regularly so that they can improve over time. Creating a feedback culture is necessary to build an engagement loop within the organization, as it makes employees feel that they can openly share their perspectives - makes them feel that they are heard. Employees want to influence decisions that affect their work and the direction of the organization.
2. Providing Incentives and Recognition
Employees are motivated by a sense of accomplishment, recognition, and reward. Recognition is a powerful addition to any organization's core values, as it costs next to nothing and can have a significant impact on employee motivation, morale, and well-being. Our study also proved that those who receive recognition are triggered to give recognition to others. Putting recognition systems in place can enable organizations to foster the right values, motivate employees, and strengthen workplace culture.
3. Ensuring adequate Work-Life Balance
It's important to strike a balance between work and life outside of work. A healthy work-life balance is essential to job satisfaction. This can be achieved by allowing employees flexibility in their work hours or providing them with opportunities to work from home. The spike in remote work policies amidst the Pandemic has significantly improved this aspect; but also poses risks of its own - are employees equally productive while not working at the office? (we explore this in-depth, here). Nevertheless, Employees need to know that their manager understands they have lives outside of work - this is key in preventing burnout and helping reduce stress.
4. Providing Training and Development Programs
Training and development programs help employees gain new skills that can increase their productivity at work as well as prepare them for upcoming roles within the organization. As aforementioned, 73% of employees would have remained at their company had there been more skill-building opportunities. As part of a continuous feedback culture, managers can help identify areas for professional growth and invest in upskilling employees. According to Achievers, there is a direct link between low investment in employee development and staff turnover. This indicates that to have strong retention policies in place, organizations must invest in employee development programs. This provides opportunities for employees to grow and incentivizes them to stay at the workplace.
5. Incentivizing Wellness Programs
Keeping employees fit - physically, mentally, and financially, is crucial. In light of increasing post-pandemic turnover rates, many employers have taken it upon themselves to expand their wellness offerings in order to make employees feel more supported at work. This is significant as McKinsey revealed that half of the employees worldwide are feeling burned out. Wellness programs help reduce burnout and improve employee health by offering various benefits such as gym membership discounts, a subscription stipend, etc! Moreover, these programs also benefit employers as they increase employee motivation and make employees feel supported.
Conclusion
In Conclusion, the 5 Employee Retention Strategies mentioned above are just some ways to increase team members' job satisfaction and motivation. Implementing some of these could have a considerable impact on your work culture. However, the main takeaway remains: encouraging employee engagement in the workplace is KEY in retaining the best talents, fostering a positive work culture, and progressively growing towards organizational goals and objectives. All whilst being considerate and supportive of employee health, well-being and happiness. Financial compensation alone isn't adequate in today's tight labor market to retain your employees and sustain a productive workforce. Leaders and Management ought to consider implementing some of the policies outlined above if their work culture, like many others, has struggled with productivity and performance, post-pandemic.
Need help with Employee Retention?
Happily.ai is an all-in-one employee experience platform that fosters a positive workplace. Organizations use Happily to run daily check-ins, enable better conversations, develop people managers, and drive unprecedented feedback and recognition. Real-time well-being and happiness insights are also available to help you better understand your teams and people. Visit us on our website or sign up for a demo to learn more about our features and benefits and how we help organizations engage and retain their best employees!
