How to attract and retain great employees
Retaining employees can be difficult for all HR managers. Just when you think you have solid team for the foreseeable future, one of your top employees decides to venture off to a new role in a different company.
This is incredibly common within the employment cycle. Whether it be due to personal circumstances, promised perks or even just the longing for change, some of your best employees will come to your door for the dreaded handing in of the notice. While some bosses may encourage active change, it seems that most rank it as one of their highest worries.
Our members recently took part in a survey from Dublin Chamber, which that found retaining and attracting staff is the number one concern for businesses in 2018. But how can we combat this? What is the key to retaining good staff? Here at Glandore we believe that it’s important to ensure that there are good levels of satisfaction amongst employees and that they can continuously convey suggestions surrounding this to their employers. So, we’ve put together a list of some practical ways you can increase retention in your workplace.
1. Promoting promotions
It may be common knowledge that if you work hard enough, you will be rewarded as such.
However, the majority of those switching jobs are moving up the career ladder. It’s therefore important to have in place a career-building structure which can be then promoted to members of staff. If employees know that they can work towards increased pay and more exciting opportunities within your company, they are more likely to stay put.
Offering additional benefits-in-kind with each promotion may also help make your employees feel more valued in their role and make employers feel more secure.
2. Culture is key
A healthy work culture takes a good amount of time to nurture and grow, but is something that is almost impossible to break once it’s there.
An atmosphere where there’s no such thing as a stupid question and everybody’s timetable and workload are considered is incredibly valuable and may be the determining factor for those who are considering a move. If one feels accepted and comfortable in their environment, they may not want to start over in a brand-new role straight away.
Try getting your office manager to look into some group activities or organise some on-site workshops.
3. Communication with leaders
An employee who knows that they can voice their opinions to their manager without fear of backlash is typically a fairly comfortable one.
Opening up different channels of communication is the best way to ensure that your employees can provide frequent feedback to higher ups about certain products or processes.
4. Change it up
Sometimes an employee would just like to take on some more challenging work or even to take a break from their usual role.
This may be difficult if they specialise in something very particular but if some employees have a particularly flexible role, it might be worthwhile getting them to attempt a project outside of their usual scope. If the employee’s job is more specialised, a change in scenery could be another way of offering a fresh perspective and change. Flexible workspacescan offer adaptability for team members, and a chance to interact with other liked-minded working professionals.
Boredom can often lead to a disconnect between the employee and their performance and eventually disengagement. Try to avoid this by any means necessary.
5. Eliminate the small problems
An employee who doesn’t have to deal with the petty problems of office sharing is less likely to take their aggression to the job boards.
Problems which are easily solved – but often aren’t – can be a real morale killer and may make your star employee consider a career change if they continue.
Try to eliminate these problems as they arise. Set up a system in which people can log these issues and assign this responsibility to your office manager.