Why Employee Retention Is Essential To Your Business

Good employees are the most prominent asset an organisation can have, more important than any document, hardware or piece of software. Employees are who keep your customers and who help deliver a beneficial service. So how do you go about holding on to your best talent and, can technology play a part?

Here’s our top 10 tips for employee retention.

1.  Give them purpose   By that I mean don’t pigeon hole them into “groundhog day”. Once your staff master their one ‘trade’, consider harnessing their enthusiasm for other parts of the business. This will keep them enthusiastic and want to come to work.

1. Give them challenge. If they are not challenged, they may start looking. Extending on from point 1. Ask your staff “is there another part of the business you may be interested in contributing to”. If they have totally mastered their role, they may welcome the challenge of making a difference in other ways in addition to what they already are doing

1. Work/life balance. Have occasional fun activities. If they go the extra yard, let them have a longer lunch or leave early the next day for example. If they get burnt out from being overloaded, they may look elsewhere that will let them recharge their batteries.

1. Reviews. Having a performance review is a good way to let the staff member know that they are being appreciated. Reviews give valuable feedback and let them know if they are on track as well as if they are not on track and that you are wanting to help them fill any gaps so they do hit their targets.

1. Don’t classify anyone’s role as non-essential. Everyone is a cog in the watch. Remove one cog from a watch and see what happens. Often it’s someone that is overlooked that gets noticed only once they have left. And once that knowledge walks out the door, you can’t always Google for the answer. Especially f what they were doing is done with something that is not off the shelf or heavily customised.

1. Career progression. Give them training and something to strive for. Having work role goals is great. But above and beyond that, encourage them to “be a better me”. Everyone will want to know “where will I be in this place in 5 years”. Have no chance of any progression and the retention rate can be assured of not being high. Investing in training proves the company values the staff member and is willing to invest in their personal development. This has a two-fold benefit. The staff member will gain further skills that will benefit them as well as the company.

1. Provide tools for their trade. If you are in IT and your staff are going to be “seen as the face of the company”. Having decent equipment to take on-site will leave the staff member with a positive attitude. It will also be noticed by the customer. Their IT on-site tech came appropriately equipped. Not with some obsolete book-end for a laptop.

1. Appropriate uniform. Brand awareness is a big thing. Having company shirt/T-shirt will make the staff member feel “part of the family”. For the IT tech doing an on-site, the people they are in contact with will notice the branding and your staff member will feel important also.

1. Fun. Having occasional staff functions such as a social outing or lunch etc boosts morale. By breaking up the week once every so often, builds hype and gives the staff something to look forward to. Also, the team will look forward to coming in to work. Having these sort of social events boosts communication also. This value adds to the business as staff will feel they can approach others they don’t usually sit near or work with for advice on a given topic that they are not sure of the best approach.

1. Perks. Everyone loves perks, and so do employees. Having work supplied tea, coffee, biscuits etc is a great starting point. Do some of your suppliers have any ‘staff discounts’ that can be made available. A bit like the RACV membership card. If there are connections out there that can help with something such as movie tickets, car service, tyres, white goods, vouchers etc. These sort of incentives may have short-term cost but long-term benefits of staff retention. Skillset and knowledge, take time to build up at your workplace. It may be worth planting a few beans to reap the rewards of a better harvest at a later date.

To train great talent, it takes education, empathy and a whole lot of time. When you invest in an employee with all your training and onboarding, you need to have a culture that can hold onto them. In this culture, you need a framework that allows for employee growth and team camaraderie; perhaps technology can be that enabler.

HOW POWERNET GROUP CAN HELP?

We take great pride in partnering with organisations. Our team specialises in developing customised solutions to help you get the most out of your technology