How To Increase Employee Retention An essential guide Employee retention is high on the agenda of most companies How To today, not only to reduce the associated costs of replacing an employee through recruitment, but because of the benefits that come with retaining well-trained employees who Increase understand all the intricacies of your business and can execute their job role with little support or training. It’s no surprise that Employee nearly 78% of business leaders rank employee retention as important or urgent, and if you are looking to overcome poor Retention retention rates or simply improve upon your current one then this eBook will help you get you to where you want to be. Whether you’re a start-up with a handful of employees, or a large corporate with multiple offices, poor retention can have a big impact on your bottom line. This eBook will outline the steps you can take to improve yours today. 78% Of Business Leaders Rank Employee Retention As Important Or Urgent TLNT.com 78% If you are more prone to people leaving in the early stages of their career with your organisation than your longer serving employees then you are not alone. Look At How In a lot of the instances the reason for leaving is: • The role is not what they expected You Hire • They don’t enjoy working at your organisation • They haven’t bedded into the role properly In A Study Of Over 1000 Workers, 31% 31%Reported Having Quit A Job Within The First Six Months BambooHR Now without a crystal ball it is difficult to know exactly how a new employee is going to settle into a role at your organisation, but there are steps you can take at the point of hiring to eliminate the “candidate personas” that are less likely to stay. Look At How You Hire: Descriptive Job Adverts Promote Your Authentic Employer Brand So many companies focus on the candidate profile when As suggested with the job advert, you must ensure you promote creating a job advert, listing skills and experience required an authentic representation of your employer brand online. Use but often forgetting to include the relevant information platforms such as your careers site and social media pages to about the role, the environment and the culture of your share news and employee stories, showcase office life and give organisation. The job may seem perfect on paper, but it’s a glimpse into team events and celebrations. Not every those “little things” about a role that really determine candidate wants the same type of role, some people are more whether it’s the right job for the candidate or not. Use your suited to a relaxed environment where they can work job adverts as a platform to show what the role is really like, autonomously with a pair of headphones on, others prefer a give specific details about the responsibilities, the team fast-paced sales floor where they can make jokes with their structure, the perks and the challenges of the role. This colleagues as they work! If you can showcase your unique might filter out some candidates from applying, but the ones employer brand online it will help candidates see the type of that do are more likely to stay after being hired because company you are before they join, again filtering out the people you’ve been transparent about the role from the beginning. with the wrong fit for your company culture. Look At How You Hire: Be Thorough In The Interview Be Clear About The Job Offer As tempting as it is to tell a candidate your company is the When delivering a job offer it’s vital that you disclose everything greatest place to work you shouldn’t skew the truth too for the candidate. Instead of just giving a confirmation of the much. Be candid about the role, and even stress the salary and job title, you should describe a full overview of the negative parts along with the positives. For example, if you benefits package, holiday entitlement, terms of the contract and are recruiting for a “Sales Role” that has high KPI’s and probation period etc. Something that may seem small like “how targets that might lead to working late nights, you must be much the company contributes to the employee’s pension up front and manage the candidate’s expectations. scheme” can be a real deal breaker for a candidate, and it’s Otherwise they may join and decide to leave shortly after better to know now than 6 weeks after the candidate has when these aspects of the role come to light. If the interview started. goes well why not show them where they will be working so they can get a real glimpse into the environment and the team they will be joining too? Improve Your Working Environment The physical working environment you cramped and cold office space with no provide for your employees can have a windows or atmosphere! You also need to huge impact on job satisfaction, so if consider what the working environment is yours isn’t up to scratch it could lead to for each job role too. Not every job retention issues down the line. Obviously, function happens in an office, some things like safety conditions and employees work in a warehouse, outside cleanliness are vital for any workplace, but or driving a vehicle for example, which you should also be considering the actual can make the working environment design of your work environment. For difficult to control but not impossible to example, an office with plenty of natural improve. If you want to keep your light, spacious and functional workspace, employees happy then you should be communal break-out areas, temperature looking at the environment across all job control and a Spotify playlist is probably functions and not just in your HQ office. going to be nicer to work in than a Develop A Winning Culture Every company has a unique culture, it’s pre-existing and makes up a big part of an employee’s experience in their job. There is no right or wrong way to build and shape your culture, but if you develop this from day one then you are more likely to attract candidates who resonate with that culture and are therefore more likely to stay. Your culture is who you are, your employees mould to it and if yours is strong enough it can increase engagement, job satisfaction and most importantly stop your employees from leaving. 94% Of Executives And 88% Of Employees Believe A Distinct Workplace Culture94% Is Important To Business Success Deloitte Examples Of What A “Company Culture” Might Look Like: Company Culture3 • Corporate • International travel for employees Company Culture • On-site gym 1 • Fast-paced environment • Lots of social events • Fun working environment • Friday beers on the company • Office ping pong table Company Culture2 • Flexible and remote working options • Office yoga • Bring your dog to work • Free fruit Mondays LinkedIn produce industry reports annually, and one Understand of the areas they report is on “what candidates want in a job”. Here is a snapshot from the December What’s Important 2017 report of the Information Technology and Services Industry for example: To Employees In Your Industry What employees deem as being important in their role is likely to change over time, so you need to stay on top of recruitment trends to ensure your offering remains competitive and to reduce the risk of employees leaving for another role. What’s even more important is Understanding what is driving candidates within that you look at trends in your specific industry, your sector will help you identify areas that can help because what motivates someone in one sector you retain current employees. may be totally different to another. Employee Surveys - A large-scale employee engagement survey is a great Understand way to keep on top of exactly how your employees feel about working for your organisation. You should ask questions around your EVP’s (employee value propositions), benefits package, working environment, management What’s and the job role itself, to understand how satisfied employees are right now Important and to discover what you could potentially improve upon in the future. Feedback platforms - The only drawback of an employee survey is that they To Your are usually done only once or twice a year, meaning you may not learn about an employee concern until it’s too late to fix it. If you can, implement a feedback system that allows employees to share their thoughts Employees (anonymously or not) 365 days a year as it will help you stay ahead of curve. Large scale reports and studies will give you an Online reviews - Your employees may already be sharing feedback through indication of what is happening in the market to online platforms such as Glassdoor so make sure you check yours regularly, help you remain competitive, but the best way to so you have the chance to react to any concerns your employees raise. You understand how you can retain employees at your can claim your Glassdoor profile through a business email address to get organisation is to conduct your own research. notifications of any new reviews shared. 78% Of Companies Have A Documented Employee Engagement Strategy And Nearly 50% Measure 50%Success Maritz Motivation Measure – If you make changes in your company in response to feedback you need to ensure they are 5 Listen To Feedback having an impact. Use your next employee survey to measure the change in satisfaction for relevant parts of Getting employee feedback will help you identify areas you could improve the business.