Employee Retention Strategies

By Craig Babigian

Why should a PEO or HR service provider care about employee retention best practices?

It’s an issue that’s going to crop up in your own business – and for your clients. If you can provide some guidance to your customers to help improve their employee retention plan, they are going to be more successful and value your services that much more. Here are a few tips on employee retention best practices you can share with them.

Employee retention strategies matter. Some of the most successful businesses are even using their physical spaces to help them compete for and retain talent. Search engine giant Google has playground slides in their offices. Customer relationship management software provider Salesforce.com has a 107’ LED wall featuring nature scenes. Every start-up on the planet has a Ping-Pong table – or two. Some of them even have a chef to cook your lunch.

While many businesses can’t afford to give their offices a facelift, there are ways to create an employee retention plan that will help them attract and keep top-notch employees.

Employee Retention Strategies

Finding and keeping talent in a competitive marketplace should be a standard part of any business plan, no matter what the industry. We know what a revenue drain employee turnover can be. So the first rule of employee retention best practices is to start at the beginning by hiring for the cultural fit.

Many skills can be taught, but how a potential employee will fit into the prevailing work environment is something that you must think about before bringing in someone new. Think about how the new hire will get along with others in the department. Do they have the same work ethic as the rest of the team? Getting buy-in from the rest of the team is really important too.

When you’ve found the right candidate, how can you create a positive work environment that will help you keep them?

The Wall Street Journal stated that most employees stick around because of their co-workers, flexible scheduling, personal time off, internal promotion and employee development and training. Successful employers inspire workers using these employee retention best practices:

  • Always listening to employees and provide them with a platform for open dialogue. Technology can be leveraged to solicit anonymous feedback on employee morale, helping you change course if it needs to as a way to improve the work environment.
  • Offering feedback and praise in the spirit of continual learning and improvement. This is simple and cost efficient – and often ignored. Creating recognition programs with awards and making sure you have a standardized review process are vital to keeping employees engaged. Try a congratulatory email at project completion or add team accomplishments to a company-wide newsletter.
  • Leading by example as a way to lay the foundation for a high-functioning organization that attracts and retains the best talent. Create a vision for where your company wants to be in five years; then share that vision with employees. Creating trust and open accountability by being an engaging leader will help your business keep top talent.

You’ll never totally eliminate employee turnover. But if your employee retention strategy includes treating workers with respect and showing how much you appreciate their work, it will greatly lessen the turnover that costs employers millions of dollars each year.

And don’t think that the only thing that motivates employees is a spiffy office. Technology such as self-service through an employee HR portal can play a big role in employee retention strategies as well. Enabling employees access to all their pay stubs, paid time off balances, tax forms are perfect ways to lessen frustration and create transparency.

if your employee retention strategy includes best practices such as treating workers with respect and showing how much you appreciate their work, it will create an environment that reduces the turnover that costs employers millions of dollars each year.