How to retain your employees
Recruitment and onboarding is a time-consuming, resource-intensive process. The process is an investment in your business - but if employees don't stick around long enough to be worth the investment, it can quickly become costly for you.
Added to this is the challenge that many of us change jobs significantly more often than we used to. If we want to move up the ladder and get a higher salary, we often feel compelled to change jobs. If you want to retain your talented employees, it is therefore extremely important that you make an active effort to ensure they have a reason to stay with you.
In this article, we share five tips on how to ensure your employees stay with your company for longer, so you both get the most out of the relationship.
Do you want the skills you need to recruit and retain great people?
LEAD's Recruitment and Retention in the Public Sector course provides you with the leadership skills and tools to engage and retain talented employees and achieve long-term success.
At LEAD, we work strategically with the concept of "The Attractive Workplace", where the organization as a whole is crucial to your success in recruiting and retaining the right employees. We help you analyze your own organization and identify the focus areas you need to optimize.
In this course, we have gathered a number of experts in public management and recruitment to rethink the way we as organizations and leaders look at and strategically target recruitment and retention of employees in a long-term, sustainable perspective. You'll gain inspiration and concrete tools to rethink and improve your practices for recruiting and retaining the right employees. And you'll have the opportunity to take a closer look at your own practices and get new inspiration for possible solutions.
Read more about LEAD's Recruitment and Retention course
Read more about LEAD's Recruitment and Retention course
1. Align expectations during recruitment
Although the majority of the recruitment process takes place before the employee is hired, the process still plays a significant role in employee retention.
It's during the recruitment process and when the contract is signed that the employee is given all the information about work, responsibilities, KPIs, team structure, etc. Therefore, it's important to ensure that there are no unpleasant surprises for the employee after the contract is signed.
Therefore, make sure to align expectations with the employee during recruitment. Also, continue to hold regular follow-up interviews, performance reviews and meetings with the immediate manager during the employee's employment. This way, you can prevent the company and your new employee from getting off on the wrong foot.
2. Practice transparency and open communication
Transparency and open communication are key criteria when it comes to employee retention. If you want to create the best conditions for engaging and retaining your employees, you need to ensure that there is a steady flow of information from management to employees in your company. This means practicing transparency and open communication about what's going on in the company, but also about the individual employee's work and performance.
Which format to use for communication depends on the individual company. For example:
- Hold large meetings in the canteen, where there's room for the whole company.
- Hold online presentations for the entire company so everyone is up to date on the latest news.
- Send monthly newsletters to all employees.
- Encourage monthly department meetings where managers update their team members.
- Ensure all employees have regular one-on-one meetings with their line manager.
The most important thing is that the communication flow is fixed and that any company changes don't come as an unpleasant surprise out of the blue.
3. Focus on employee development
When it comes to employee retention, it's important that employees have opportunities for development. Few people thrive in a job that doesn't challenge them or provide room for professional, professional and personal development. If your employees don't feel like they're moving forward, they're more likely to look for another job.
There are several ways to ensure you challenge your employees and give them room to grow. This could be through internal training and workshops or external courses. Also, make sure to regularly ask employees if they are satisfied with their professional development and how they see their career developing in the future. This will allow you to accommodate their wishes before they consider changing jobs.
4. Offer greater flexibility
Employees' work lives are important - but a healthy work-life balance is just as important. For many employees, having the option of a flexible working life is becoming increasingly important.
Especially for employees who commute to work, flexibility can be of great importance. By being able to work from home, they may be able to save an hour or two on transportation a few times a week. These are hours they can spend on hobbies or spending time with their family.
It's also hours that the company itself benefits from through happy, motivated and grateful employees. And employees who feel that the company cares about both their work life and their leisure time are more likely to stay with the company for longer.
You can read more about how to create greater job satisfaction among your employees and a good mental and physical work environment in our articles on both topics.
5. Recognize and reward your employees
Recognition is one of the most important parts of creating a work culture that employees thrive in. Most people need to be recognized for their good work on a daily basis. We're not necessarily talking about being recognized for great achievements - although of course they deserve praise too - but also being recognized for being a diligent employee or a good colleague.
Recognition shows employees that their employer notices them and appreciates their efforts and work. And employees who feel seen and valued will be less tempted to look for a new job.
However, remember that reward is an essential part of recognition. There are many ways to reward great employees, but there's no getting around the fact that a raise is often valued more than most alternatives. If your employees are doing a fantastic job, but their salary doesn't reflect this, you may risk them looking for a new job in order to get a raise.
Therefore, consider introducing regular and fair raises and bringing up the subject of raises before employees do. This way, you show that your company recognizes the value of your employees.
Read more about LEAD's Recruitment and Retention course
Do you want to be better equipped to recruit, engage and retain great people?
LEAD's course in recruitment and retention of employees in the public sector will fill your toolbox with concrete tools to work strategically and purposefully to create an attractive workplace, attract qualified candidates and engage and retain talented employees.
Cross-functional leadership is about the leader setting a clear direction for collaboration across the organization. Specifically, the manager must find and combine the right employees who are able to solve the tasks and challenges that cut across the organization. It is also the manager's responsibility to create the right framework and conditions for collaboration. This makes cross-organizational collaboration easier and it becomes clearer why it is important to succeed.
At LEAD, we advise and help leaders with cross-functional leadership. More specifically, we assist in creating agile organizations and organizational cultures that are able to establish collaboration and innovation across departments, professional groups, citizens, suppliers and organizations.
