The Covid-19 Pandemic has changed things quite drastically, and its effect on the corporate world has pressed the reset button in many areas than expected before. For example, a survey conducted by CNBC found that more than 25 % of the workers would start working from home in 2021. With one in four employees working from home, managers’ job to retain employees will become increasingly difficult.
The previous strategies of the corporate circle might not be able to retain the dynamic talent in your company, and you will need some robust ways and methods to hold your present employees to stay with you in 2021 and beyond. The gig economy has changed the corporate sector and created new ways for unsatisfied employees to freelance and quit their jobs whenever they please. The Forbes report claims that almost 49% of millennials would leave their jobs and work for themselves through the freelance economy.
What is Employee Retention?
The idea of retention means holding on to the talent which you have hired, trained, and made a valuable asset for your organization. When a trained employee leaves your organization, it takes more than two to three months to get another person in that place and make things get streamlined, and have the workflow to the previous level.
In easier terms, employee retention is the strategies and methods companies undertake to hold their employees in a highly competitive environment. The strategies could range from monetary and non-monetary rewards. Psychological appraisals, appreciation, and paid holidays are also valuable tools that have provided benefits to employers in terms of employee retention.
Why do You Need Employee Retention?
A few decades before, employers had all the cards to decide the fate of their employees. Now things have changed, and retaining talent can often end up being the defining factor between success and loss. It is in the hands of the employees to take the organization to a whole new level in the competition. The highly motivated and highly engaged employees guarantee the survival and top position in the highly volatile economy.
When you have highly engaged and motivated employees, you can perform far better than the competitors. But if your employees are not motivated and engaged intrinsically with the management, you will end up behind the schedule works and goals un-achieved. When an employee enters the organization for the first time, it takes more than three months for the organization to involve his mental and psychological abilities to go with the organizational flow.
Once the person leaves and another employee fills the gap, the organization will have to suffer financially. The morale of other people associated with the older employee will also make them shaky. You cannot take the risk of letting your employees leave your company and making you suffer at the hand of cutthroat competition.
How to Calculate Employee Retention Rate?
When you want to improve employee retention, you must first learn how to calculate the percentage of employees who will stick to the company and make you go beyond the objectives and goals. Then, you must calculate employee engagement every quarter, fabricate the strategies accordingly, and always try to add novelty and innovation to your strategy to make your employees more engaged and motivated.
When you want to calculate the percentage of employee engagement, first of all, define a particular period. The beginning and the end of the period are of primary concern here. Follow the simple formula below and divide the current number of employees or employees at the end of the time period with the total number of employees at the beginning of the specific time. Multiply the answer with 100, and you will get the exact percentage of employee retention in your company.
Current number of employees at the end of the time period
Employee engagement rate = —————————- * 100
Total number of employees at the beginning of the period
20 Highly Effective Employee Retention Strategies for 2021 and Beyond
We have researched and listed some employee retention strategies below that have proven to work time after time.
1. Hiring for your Culture
When you hire employees, you are hiring them to work inside the culture of the organization. According to experts, 80% of employee turnover is the result of bad hiring decisions. When we talk about bad hiring decisions, it doesn’t always mean hiring someone who is not educated or qualified enough to hold the position. A bad hiring decision often means you employ a person who is not compatible with the core values of the culture in your organisation. You cannot ask textbook questions or random queries during the interviews to get the person’s insight into their core values and compatibility with their values. When managers go beyond the pre-written statements, they can get the true insight of the person and the core structure.
The interviewer should ask about the core values and ask their view on the case studies regarding the organisation’s culture. When you probe the person on how he or she perceives the organisation’s cultural values, you will get an accurate picture of whether the person can join and sustain in your organisational culture. Once the employee gets fully involved with the culture, the productivity and motivating will reach the higher apex, and you will get a fully engaged employee for some extended time.
2. Hybrid Workplaces
The hybrid workplace is the new expectation of employees from the companies. Before the pandemic, this idea was often perceived as a benefit. Now, it has turned into an expectation; employees are expecting that their company and management should give them chances and opportunities to work from home.
The hybrid workplace is a win-win for both employees and employers. When you give your employees the benefit of working from home, they feel safe and protected and love to perform more for their organisations. In addition, the employees get the chance to save money on their commute, and a safe environment will enhance their engagement.
The company can save the infrastructure cost, and there are possibilities of involving people worldwide to work on a particular task. In addition, it will increase diversity and creativity, and corporations get more out of the employees without investing thousands of dollars in the workplace environment.
3. Reward Efforts
Things don’t always go as we plan them. There are high chances that your employee works hard to cut a deal, but things didn’t go as expected. You must look for your employee’s efforts in the process and reward the person accordingly.
When you reward your employees on behalf of their effort, they feel more valued and acknowledged. They realize that the organisation is with them in every part of the work. Rewarding doesn’t mean that you must not focus on results. Instead, it is a way to motivating your employees to come up with innovative ideas to get things done without being demotivated by failures.
When you reward the person’s effort, he or she will feel highly connected with the organization and will perform more to get higher results than you could expect.
4. Employee Well-being
Employee well-being must be the top priority for organisations. The healthy employee will perform more, and you will not have to suffer sick leaves more frequently. The pandemic has made us all suffer the most in the emotional and physical health domain. When you offer opportunities to the employees in these domains, you are engaging them more with you.
As LinkedIn offered a free mental week to ward off the stress of burnout, you can also manage such surprise holidays for your employees after an intense week. In addition, when you offer health insurance to your employees, they get a solid reason to stay with you for some longer time.
The organisations focused on their employees’ emotional and mental health seldom suffer from absenteeism, low productivity, and less turnover. When you care for your employees, they will care for you and would try to exceed your expectations.
5. CSR Programs
The pandemic has made many people and families suffer. If not through sickness, then through monetary pressures. Many people lost their jobs, and others lost the ones responsible for the household income. The CSR initiative is the perfect thing for the people concerned about others and willing to show empathy.
A physical CSR activity might not be a perfect solution at this time. Still, when you add virtual resources to the process, it will allow you to conduct activities focused on the betterment of the people without investing thousands of dollars. Moreover, you can also conduct virtual activities even after the pandemic.
When your employees see that they are doing something for society, they will feel accomplished, and you will have a higher level of employee engagement. In addition, the motivated employees will perform more for the community and for your company to feel acknowledged and accepted.
6. ESOPs
Employee Stock Ownership Program is a process of giving your company stocks to the employees as a reward for their exceptional work. When employees achieve their goals, you give them the stocks of the company. These stocks will make them feel like they own a stake in the company, which will help them want to do more and deliver more to see their held stock grow.
When an employee realizes that an increase in the company’s stock value will increase his or her financial worth, you cannot stop that highly engaged and motivated employee from working hard and doing diligent work to better the whole organization. When the employee gets stock in bonus and reward, his motivating and engagement will reach a higher level. It will become almost impossible for that person to leave your company and go for some other option.
7. Sabbaticals
Offering sabbatical holidays to your employees will make them feel that they are important and the company acknowledges their work. These leaves will make them feel valued, and they can spend these holidays learning new skills and increasing their productivity.
The sabbatical leaves are proven to increase the engagement of the employees. When a person gets paid leave from the company, they can spend quality time with their family or go on holiday trips to elevate their emotional health. These leaves also help the employee create an enhanced work-life balance.
When the paid leaves are a surety for the employees, they don’t mind working hard and go beyond their limits to fulfill the requirements and achieve the goals to make your company outperform the other competitors in the industry. Mental comfort and emotional ease is the guarantee for engagement and productivity.
8. Employee Recognition
Recognizing the employees’ work for the betterment of the organization is a perfect way to increase employee engagement and motivate them to do more than average. There are various ways to recognize the efforts and achievements of the employee.
The least expensive and easiest way to recognize employees’ work is displaying employee of the week or employee of the month on the bulletin board. You don’t have to invest hundreds of dollars in celebrating the achievements of employees. On the bulletin board display, the picture of the employee with the goal achieved is enough to recognize the efforts.
You can also throw a doughnut party every month to celebrate employee of the month in different departments. The small act and event will make everyone engaged and motivated to perform more and achieve more. The motivated employees will stick to your organization and do more to get their spot on the bulletin board.
9. Alter Work Responsibilities
Doing the same work, again and again, will make the employees bored, and the monotonous work will reduce the productivity level of the employees. Moreover, when your employees repeatedly do a specific task, their skill set will not improve, and innovative decision-making will be impossible for them.
When you shift the work responsibilities of your employees from one job to another, you are giving them opportunities to improve their skill set. Improving experience will make them feel more involved with their job, and employee engagement will reach a higher level by providing them with the opportunities to do different tasks.
You can transfer the employees for a month or two in different departments to let them learn new skills, and the enhanced skills will allow them to lead themselves and their team members to achieve goals more efficiently and objectively.
10. Reduced Workdays
Research conducted by Stanford University reveals that people who work more than 50 hours will suffer from a sharp decline in productivity. In addition, the extra-long working hours will make the employee feel insecure in the environment. As a result, after a year or so, the person will leave the organization and go to another place that offers fewer working hours.
The main reason behind people quitting their jobs and start freelancing is flexible and reduced working hours. In less time, people get to achieve more, and they feel more accomplished. But, unfortunately, the companies that make their employees work longer hours will have to suffer lower productivity and a decline in employee engagement.
When you reduce the workdays or working hours of the employees, you are giving them solid reasons to stay in your organization and even leave the idea of freelancing and the gig economy. In addition, fewer working hours will increase productivity, and you will see a rise in their performance and engagement with the organization.
11. Open Communication
An open-door policy is proven to provide outrageous benefits for both the employees and the companies in various terms. The open-door policy means that your employees are not restricted in their workplace, and they are not forced to keep quiet in the organization.
Open communication means that you have allowed your employees to express their issues and problems with the higher management level. This open communication will make them feel secured and acknowledged in the organization.
Open communication will allow them to share their problems with the management and solve everything in their workplace. When they realize that their opinion has value and the higher management hears them, the employee engagement levels will soar higher. As a result, you will get highly motivated employees who are doing great for the betterment of the organization.
12. Growth and Development
When you are focused on the betterment of your employee in their personal career growth, you make them feel valued as individuals. Training programs and skill learning courses are the best way to let them know that higher management cares for their career growth.
When you invest resources to teach new skills and add more value to their professional acumen, you get highly skilled employees who can be promoted to a higher level in your organization. These promoted employees will be highly motivated, and with increased engagement levels, they will do more.
You will have highly skilled professionals who are diffused with your culture and work to better the company.
13. Feedback Culture
Open communication in the organization is one thing, but the feedback culture is an entirely different approach. The feedback culture allows the employees to stay connected with the seniors and subordinates. They get comments and responses from the seniors and juniors.
This feedback culture allows them to feel like a part of the organization where everyone is connected. This connectivity will save them from workplace loneliness, and there will be no anxiety or stress for new and existing employees.
There are high chances that your employees feel uncomfortable within the organization; the feedback will help them increase their confidence in the higher leadership. In addition, the feedback on how the individual is doing in the organisation, professionally or as an individual, will allow them to make amends and increase employee engagement.
14. Orientation Programs
The orientation program is the most helpful way for organizations to involve new employees in the organizational culture. The diffusion and alignment with the corporate culture for the new employee become very difficult without the orientation program. There are mainly two types of orientation programs that organisations are mostly using.
Orientation meetings or seminars provide an excellent way for the management and employees to elaborate on the newcomers’ core values. When the new employees are informed about the culture and core values of the organisation, it increases employee engagement by making them diffused with the organizational culture.
The buddy program is the most inexpensive mean of diffusing newcomers with the organizational culture. An existing employee is assigned to the new employee who tells the newcomer about all the essential tasks, core values, and things necessary n the organisation to have better diffusion and increased motivation for the first two weeks.
15. Help them gain Work-Life Balance
Research tells that when organisations offer a good work-life balance, more than 11 % of employees refuse a new job and don’t leave their existing organizations. So when you are providing opportunities to the employees to increase work-life balance, you are providing them with the chance to increase productivity and get emotionally fit.
The increased work-life balance in employees will give you more engaged, motivated, and innovative employees who will get beyond the traditional means and productivity level to make you stand ahead of the competition. You focus on the employees’ ease, and they will make you feel elated with your choice.
You can offer flexible working hours, work-from-home opportunities, or provide free daycare to working mothers. Such activities are enough to make your employees super performers in their daily life.
16. Bonding with Employees
The employees mostly don’t switch companies; instead, they switch the managers. So the team members who are not connected with the manager and their bond is weak, there are high chances that there will rise a dispute in some later time, or you will see a decrease in productivity of the team.
When you provide the team lunch, team holidays, or activities, you allow the employees to bond with each other and stay emotionally connected with the entire team. This connectivity will make them a part of the team and the company at the same time.
These activities will make them part of the whole, and they will feel engaged towards the organisation and their team. When employees are connected, and there is a bond between them, their communication increases, and they strive to do more for each other and their organization.
17. Exit Interviews
This point might seem absurd to you here, but the reason for adding this point is logical and natural. There are many cases when you have to let go of the employee. This inevitable situation can also give you the most crucial information that will save you from such a situation in the future.
An exit interview is the most helpful tool to provide you with information on why the employee had to leave your organization. This interview will tell you about the toxic management or conflicting strategies that decreased employee engagement and that individuals had to decide.
The information provided by the leaving employee will help you take the corrective measures and increase employee engagement by eliminating the factors and situations that are changing the employees’ minds.
18. Creative Compensation
35% percent of employees are on the side of leaving their present job if they get better compensation from another job. The monetary compensation alone is also not enough for the employees nowadays. They want more innovative and creative ways of recognition and compensation from their employers.
The bigger reorganizations are offering Cryptocurrency to their employees for compensation. And if you are a medium-level organization going for virtual rewards like Spotify, Netflix, and Disney plus subscription, is also an innovative way to compensate your employees.
It is always a better strategy to conduct a survey within the organization and look for the needs of the employees. Then, when you get the information about their needs, innovatively providing the resources will make them feel satisfied and motivated.
19. Financial Wellness Programs
You cannot deny the added benefits of the wellness programs in financial ways. When you provide wellness programs to your employees, you give them the reason to stay with you for some longer time. In some cases, they mostly spend their entire life with the same organization.
The current pandemic has created a sense of insecurity in the minds of people. So the employees are getting more concerned, and they try to stay with the organizations that are providing wellness programs in any of different kind and type.
The most common ones are student loan repayment, retirement plan, and flexible paydays. In addition, the wellness program guarantees the engagement, motivation, and emotional connectivity of your employee with an added incentive.
20. Diversity
Employee diversity in all sorts of types and creeds will provide you with more creative and innovative employees. According to Guardian, 68% of employees say they would love to work in organisations that offer the most robust and diverse workplace environment.
Workplace diversity is scientifically proven to provide innovative solutions and more productivity for organizations. It is also a guarantee for the employers to get an enhanced level of employee engagement, with motivation and fulfillment for the employees.
Employee diversity can be attained physically or virtually through the internet. However, you need to provide more ways for a diverse team to collaborate, work on a single plan, and pursue a common goal. This diverse team will help you stay ahead of the competition if you give them the right means and methods.
Wrapping up
Finding the right talent has become extremely difficult after the pandemic has toppled down the corporate sector throughout the globe. The freelancing and gig economy has made it impossible for organisations to hold the right talent and right person with increased employee engagement and motivation. We have provided you with innovative and out-of-the-box strategies to apply in your organisation and increase the employee engagement level to make them stay by your side for some extended time.
