It can be tricky to find and implement retention solutions that work. Often, workers who are talented and able to put in the hours are employed already, and there are not enough applicants to fill open positions. If this is true for your company, you cannot be passive about keeping employees on board. Attracting and retaining the best workers should be a priority to remain competitive and productive.
What can we do to retain employees?
Often, employers cite skills gaps as a reason why the company cannot find people who would stay. Perhaps you also need managers to undergo a talent management online course or upskill employees. Beyond that, consider the possibility of improving on your corporate culture. Here are some things to examine during a culture audit.
What is most important to your employees?
One of the critical factors in retaining employees is building a robust company culture. The benefits you offer them and how meaningful these are will explain why they stay on. If you know their struggles, you can provide solutions.
For example, perhaps people are leaving because they need to care for young children and struggle with work-life balance. Another possibility is financial hardships due to lack of money management skills. As a business leader, you need to think of how you can remove obstacles in your employees’ lives and enable their success.
What are some things we could try at our company?
If employees find it challenging to meet financial obligations, you could look into creating a structure for emergency loans at work for things like car repairs or sudden hospitalizations. Instead of creating a separate system, you can have them pay back through payroll deductions; this often leads to a high repayment success rate.
You can also support their financial literacy. Having employees enroll in budgets and managing money online courses will help them understand how to allocate funds and deal with debt. These will help them become more proactive in handling money matters.
Aside from solutions that help them manage their resources, you could also provide them with a dedicated workforce coach who can help them overcome unexpected life situations. For instance, if the employee needs a temporary childcare provider, the coach can find one for him or her.
Finally, flexible hours are always attractive to employees. When you implement asynchronous schedules, it lets people work their tasks around their other obligations, which could mean a lot for someone who has multiple responsibilities outside of work.
To retain employees, think top-down
A company’s top management should understand what their employees need and make improvements that would genuinely respond to these. Doing this will help you create a more engaged workforce. However, you cannot just search for the best solutions and drop them in your employees’ laps. You need to model the behavior you want to see in them and show that you walk the talk.
Conclusion
Retention problems are an obstacle to overcome for any company. Instead of focusing on what the business lacks, a leader should identify what is there—talents and skills, yes, but also problems or concerns. When they do, they might learn things that would help retention rates.
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