With the changing times, the world of employment has changed too.
Just a few decades ago, a person would hold just one job their entire life and that would be it, but with the changing times, people are looking for change and progress at every point of their lives.
In such a scenario, it has become important for companies to think about how to retain employees.
Retention of employees is quite important today, because good employees are getting poached almost every day today.
From feedback to material compensation, this article provides best practices for retaining valuable employees.
Seven Strategies to Keep Your Best Employees on Board
1.) Provide Feedback
Most employees want feedback – any feedback, positive or even negative.
Employees consider receiving feedback as necessary to their career growth and their job performance.
To attract and retain talented employees, the company has to train and prepare its leaders to provide feedback.
Unfortunately, this important aspect is ranked as last priority in terms of managerial competencies.
2.) Challenging experiences
One of the best routes to develop and retain your talent is providing challenging experiences.
The course to follow is to put ambitious people with potential through a series of challenging, new, unique, and different experiences, the content of which builds the ‘projected skills’ to lead the company in the future.
What difference does it make? It is cheaper and surer to develop most, but not all, of your talents from within.
The importance of quality of jobs, tasks and quality of organization has been constant over the history of measuring people’s motivation. The top motivators that turn on people to work at their best (+ retaining these employees) are – job challenges, opportunities to use one’s skills and progress.
3.) Managers to become coaches
Managers, in general, are very poor at coaching and developing their people.
This is one thing that almost everyone agrees upon – helping people with long term career development is important and that few do it well.
Companies know they have to build and develop the talent pool but for many reasons they’re simply not doing it right.
Relying on your managers to do that job is a losing strategy because they don’t have much motivation to do it. Best practice is a coordinated process driven by HR, top management, and involvement of line managers.
4.) Appraisals
Good employees should progress – that is the basic rule of any good company.
The progress that a good employee makes should not be only restricted to the monetary aspect, but should also be reflected in the post and the employees progress within the company.
A good employee should be promoted when and if they show enthusiasm in their work and their enthusiasm is productive to the company.
An appraisal works both ways – it gives a sense of responsibility and achievement to the person who receives it, as well creating a sense of competition between the general employee populace.
Therefore, appraisals are not only a very important concept when it comes to retaining good employees, but they can also be used to ensure that the non-performing employees get an onus to become performers too.
Major companies make periodic appraisals programs/plans to their stuff and it is known as a proven method for retaining and motivating good employees.
5.) Career advancement – Enhancement of Qualifications
A good employee only becomes better if their qualifications are enhanced.
There are several companies that launch programs in which the best of their employee force is selected for various courses and programs that enhance their qualifications and give them relevant knowledge with which they can grow in the profession.
This acts as a positive aspect for both the employer as well as the employee.
While the employer gets a return on investment on whatever money has been spent on the program, the employer also gets a value addition to their business when the employee implements his know-how into business procedures.
It also acts as a factor that increases the loyalty of the employee towards the employer.
6.) Material Compensation
Material compensation is arguably one of the ways for retention of employees.
Material compensation can be provided in various ways – either as an increment in the salary, a bonus or a payment given in recognition for the hard work on a particular assignment.
Remember that though pay is within the list of motivators for retaining employees, it is usually near the bottom, along with benefits.
Overpaying managers or high potential employees can be performed as a long-term strategy.
The employer should make it clear that where much is given, much is expected.
The employer should also make it clear that monetary compensation is not only the value of the work that the employee has done for the company but is also a token of appreciation that the employer feels towards the employee.
Also, material compensation should not be offered in such a way that the employee feels that’s he works only for money.
If you are looking for ways to retain good employees, you may consider applying the monetary compensation method tactfully and as part of your other efforts.
7.) Work Environment
While all the above are “direct” ways for retaining employees, the employer can even look into the work environment that they provide for the employee.
Working in a comfortable work environment has an invariable and invaluable positive effect on the efficiency of the employee. Actually speaking, an employee spends more time in the work atmosphere than he or she spends at home, and it is only practical that he or she has the best environment to work in.
The quality of organization, in terms of: work environment and culture, is defiantly a motivator for employees to stay in their current job.
Summary – Motivating and Retaining Employees
These are just some of the aspects through which the employer can retain good employees.
You may realize that the energy, focus and determination that result from developing raw talent and retaining your best employees can change the company’s culture, therefore why not try at least some of these tips.
It would be wise to consult/coordinate the human resources in order to plan the company strategy for motivating and retaining these high potential employees.