Keep Them Around—How To Maximize Staff Retention
Your employees are the lifeblood of your company, and it’s important to treat them as such. We live in an age where people will jump from a business if they feel they aren’t getting the professional development they want, the office culture they’re looking for, or should be getting paid more on the company payroll. This makes it more important than ever to invest in your employees. Turnover can be frustrating as an employer too, since the cost and time you invested to train them is now lost. So how do you maximize your staff retention and keep them around? Here are a few great ways to build a company that everyone wants to work for and also inspires them to stick around and help it grow.
Hire the Talent That Best Jives With Your Culture
Before someone is even hired, you need to make sure their personality is going to be a good fit for the culture. If they keep to themselves, and would rather just focus on work then you need to decide if they are really the best fit. This is especially true if your office is consistently having big, energetic parties. While their skills are important, ultimately if you’re looking to build employee retention your new hires need to fit in with the people they’ll be working with and be compatible with your leadership style.
Provide Clear, Supportive Leadership
Clear direction in a company is important so your employees know what the goal of your business is, and also helps foster trust in your ability to lead the organization. It’s also just as important to be supportive and guide your employees to be the best possible workers they can be—providing relevant mentorship for them where applicable. After all, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way,” – John C. Maxwell.
Listen to Your Employees and Promote Feedback
It’s not just enough to have something like a suggestion box at work. Not only can that be intimidating, if it’s in a commonly used area, it’s also very impersonal. Even annual performance reviews aren’t enough to keep people from walking out your doors. So what’s the best way to get quality feedback? For one thing, you need to invest in getting closer to your employees. Get to know them, and understand why they’re having a bad day or a good one. You also need to promote being open to feedback as well—if people don’t feel like they can approach you about new ideas, they’re not going to. Find ways in meetings to get ideas flowing and set the tone so people can feel comfortable sharing their thoughts.
Recognize Performance and Achievements
People want to feel like they are contributing to the overall success of your business. If they just feel like they could be easily replaced or are not valued, they aren’t going to want to stay. Not only that, they’re not going to provide their best work since they don’t feel they’re part of something. Recognize the hard work your employees: treat them to lunches or drinks over the success of a project completion or profitable deal. Even something as simple as thank you cards for good work on a particular task can go a long way to making your employees feel valued. By doing so, people will feel like they are part of a team or family instead of feeling like they’re just another cog in the machine.
Between managing work and your schedule, it’s important to make time for ensuring your employees feel valued and that each person knows they are an essential part of your team. Support them and they will support you in your business.
