How To Retain Your Best Employees

How To Increase Employee Retention

The hiring process can be rigorous, tedious and long. After all, you want to find the best candidate for a particular job. But when it comes down to it, finding and hiring good employees isn't enough; you also need to retain the valuable employees by fostering a positive work environment. Simple employee retention methods are cost effective, they build your reputation as a company, and they help productivity. When companies have a high turnover rate, they'll find that there are vast gaps in knowledge transfer between old and new employees. If it takes a few months for an employee to get the hang of their daily tasks, and you have a new staff every 6 months or year, your entire staff is essentially stuck in the training phases and never actually reach their fullest potential. Here are some ways you can retain your employees.

Create A Work Environment Of Trust
The first and probably the best thing you can do as an employer is to create an environment of trust. When employees trust each other and their superiors, they're more likely to be open, collaborative and forward-thinking when it comes to overall processes, resulting in increased efficiency. Employees will also feel less reluctant to call attention to budding issues in the workplace that management may not even be aware of. When employees feel that they are able to speak their minds without fear of repercussion, it improves their morale, boosts confidence and fosters creative problem-solving.

Maintain High Morale
The fact that high employee morale = higher productivity is indisputable at this point. This philosophy manifested itself in many ways in the modern workforce. For instance, some tech giants, and even many smaller companies, have gone through great lengths to make office life not only easier, but enjoyable. Some of the more famous amenities provided include cost-free, on-site daycare for employees' children, free food, on-site fitness centers, flexible hours, etc.
While not every company can have a beer-stocked fridge available to their employees, the point still stands that employers are starting to realize that happy employees = productivity. To you, that may mean having quality social time, providing free meals periodically, encouraging team activities or any number of fun, creative solutions that align with your company's core values.

Reward Good Work And Offer Learning Opportunities
This goes hand-in-hand with improving employee morale. By acknowledging and rewarding your team's efforts, individually or as a group, you're encouraging them to do their best work. Research suggests that up to 78% of workers say that being positively recognized for their work motivates them to keep doing their job. Keeping employees engaged and passionate about their jobs is crucial to retaining them. Here are some suggestions:

• Create continued learning opportunities - if employees are unable to learn new skills, their day-to-day can get stale. By giving them avenues to learn new methods or hone their skills, you'll not only keep them engaged and challenged, you may also benefit from their newfound abilities.
• Privately thank individuals - for large achievements, maybe a company party is warranted. But for smaller, individual achievements, pull aside the employee(s) and let them know that you appreciate their efforts.
• Publicly recognize overall efforts - sometimes public recognition is beneficial. Figure out a creative way to thank your team or individuals for their great work in front of the rest of the employees. For example, some companies organize their own little 'award ceremony' each year.
• Monetary incentives - raises and bonuses show appreciation and trust for employees. They may not be right for every situation, but they are certainly appreciated when big projects are completed or when continued excellence is exhibited.

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Provide Feedback To Your Employees
Whether a project is well done or gone awry, it's important to tell your employees how they did a good job and what can be improved next time the situation arises. By giving constant feedback, you're motivating people to grow and do their best all while giving them new learning experiences. And if something doesn't go as smoothly as it could have, sit down with the employee(s) to talk it through in a calm and casual way. Explain to them what could have been done better and take the opportunity to remotivate them without getting heated. It's rare that somebody enjoys doing subpar work, so unless they repeat the same negative behavior ad nauseum, try not to admonish. Turn it into a personal growth opportunity.

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