The Challenges and Best Practices of Staff Retention

Attracting the right people with the right skills and experience to your organisation is a crucial part of the recruitment process, but equally if not more important is staff retention. After all, you’ve made the investment of time and money to attract the best talent so you should develop a strategy that ensures you retain them.

Without a good staff retention strategy in your company, it may feel likely you are in a continual loop of hiring new talent. Let’s take a look at some of the challenges of staff retention and how you can overcome them with the best practices for developing a good staff retention strategy.

Challenges with Staff Retention

According to a LinkedIn survey, more than 20% of employees leave their organisation due to the lack of growth prospects and 25% leave owing to personal problems.

If the reason for an employee wanting to leave is due to personal reasons, such as issues with co-workers or childcare issues, as an employer it is in your power to resolve the issue and retain the employee.

If an employee wants to terminate their employment because there is a lack of growth options, you may be able to create a new position that helps them achieve their goals and keeps them within your organisation.

If you are not currently offering any employee benefits or perks you may find that staff will become dissatisfied and will seek employment opportunities with other companies that offer a better benefits package or more holiday.

The most crucial factor in employee retention is listening to your employees, discover their reasons for wanting to leave and discuss the measures the company could take to retain them.

Best Practices for Staff Retention

Ensuring you have a successful employee retention strategy requires thinking about things from your staff’s perspective. If you were working for a company what would you like to see and what could help improve your satisfaction? Here are some best practices to consider:

●       Onboarding and orientation: The training and support you provide from day one can help set the tone for the employee’s entire tenure at the company. Be sure to include education about the company culture and how they can contribute and thrive.

●       Mentorship program: Pairing a new staff member with a mentor can be a two-fold approach. The new employee feels they have a sounding board and a designated person they can go to with questions or for guidance and the mentor will have a sense of responsibility and importance within the company.

●       Attractive compensation: firstly, offering an attractive salary is one of the most important factors, but also consider staff bonuses, extra holiday, health benefits and retirement plans.

●       Perks: In addition to compensation think about the employee perks your organisation could offer to help boost employee morale and also improve their out of work life and wellbeing. Examples include gym memberships, free lunches, subscriptions to wellbeing apps and services, access to counselling or mentoring.

●       Performance reviews and feedback: Keeping lines of communication open is essential to a good staff retention strategy. Staff should feel they can make suggestions or give feedback on any areas of improvement. You should also hold annual reviews to discuss their performance and progress within the company and what could be done to help them get to where they want to be.

From employer branding to candidate attraction, to identifying skills and employee retention, our process-driven recruitment service coupled with modern recruitment technology enables us to focus on the full hiring circle. Get in touch to see how we can help.