Employee engagement and retention is now as vital to a business as the business itself. Organizations are feeling the heat brought on by the Great Recession, and in order to succeed in staff retention, they must return to the basics – starting with pay, as well as to find new ways to keep their employees happy.
What should you pay your people?
First things first, salary is important. While there are a number of benefits your organization can offer as part of your employee retention strategies, current and potential talent will look at the dollar sign from the start. It’s the foundation upon which your organization can build the whole package, including flexibility, but that foundation needs to be solid.
By following a few steps, your organization can ensure that you’re offering a competitive salary:
Whether it’s a new or current position, assess what the position entails.
Research the pay spectrum for that position across your industry.
Take into account the cost of living in your geographic area if your employees are local.
Tweak the position to match the pay your organization can afford. If you can pay more, add more duties to the position. If you need to play less, reduce the number of duties.
Revisit these steps on a regular basis, creating benchmarks for the future.
With the war on talent, how can you retain your top people?
Defeating the Great Resignation can be viewed as an opportunity for employers to reassess their employee retention program. Similar to a health scare, the pandemic affords employers a second chance to “eat healthier” and “exercise more often”. Just as the pandemic caused employees to reflect on their work-life balance and the meaning they assign to work, it can do the same for their employers.
Retaining employees and holding on to your top people can be broken down into a few simple – and seemingly obvious – steps. Just as with eating healthy and exercising more, the challenge is staying consistent and following through on these employee retention tasks:
Hire the right people from the start (easy, right?) Devote the time and manpower to making the right decision from the beginning to avoid employee turnover costs.
Show appreciation – not just one time. Over and over again.
Provide professional development – start by asking what your employees want in training and coaching.
Assign high-visibility and interesting projects to top performers.
Be generous in compensation, both in pay and benefits.
Offer flexibility in all areas (work-life balance, etc.).
Curate a healthy company culture = create positive relationships between talent and organization.
Keep open lines of communication – among all levels.
Create clear pathways for advancement.
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Retention of your employees: how to keep them happy, understand them, create a partnership, growth opportunities
According to Mineral’s 2022 State of HR Report, there are four key indicators that will predict an organization’s success in boosting employee morale. While some HR professionals reported success in some but not all four areas, those that claimed success with all four key indicators also boasted improved productivity and retention.
The four key indicators for employee retention are as follows:
Good work-life balance: Ensuring that employees have the flexibility and support in managing their life outside of their career will help them focus at work, as well as enjoy their professional world as much as they enjoy their personal life.
Career growth potential: If employees see a professional path and can work toward building a career with a company, they will stay and take advantage of the opportunities their organization provides. Training programs provide direction and incentive to employees who want to grow their skills and tap into their capacity for leadership.
Healthy compensation: While most people think of salary when they think of compensation, an organization can supplement a competitive salary with a robust benefits package. Beyond auditing salaries to remain in line with competitor salaries, companies can also offer a variety of elements to create a package that will both attract new talent, as well as retain current talent. In addition to the standard paid time off and health and dental insurance, organizations can also offer flexible time, gym memberships, internet service, and more creative ways to retain employees.
Reasonable workload: One of the negative side effects of retention challenges is that the burden of vacant positions falls on remaining employees – further harming retention, a vicious circle. While someone needs to fill the gap as management seeks to fill a vacancy, managers can find innovative ways to accomplish tasks without handing them to other employees. Hiring temporary staff or outsourcing tasks to freelancers are just two ways to maintain an appropriate workload for your staff.
The best ways to set up your company for talent flexibility
The pandemic opened a world of flexibility to both employers and employees alike. Work from home scenarios that had previously been unthinkable are now standard, the default mode of work for many organizations. Providing flexibility in work-life balance, as well as benefits – in whatever shape the term “benefits” takes – is only the start in what an organization can offer their current and future talent.
In the Harvard Business Review’s Jabra hybrid ways of working: 2021 Global Report, 77% of the 5,000 knowledge workers from around the globe said they want to work for a company that offers them the flexibility to work from anywhere. In fact, 59% said flexibility is more important than salary or benefits.
One aspect of flexibility that companies can easily provide to their talent – and that doesn’t cost a thing – is autonomy. 61% of the 5,000 knowledge workers report that they would rather that their managers allow team members to decide for themselves when they need to work from the office and when they can work from home.
In addition to enabling talent to work from home, organizations can empower talent to make the decision as to when to work from home and when it’s necessary to work from the office. After two years of government and company mandates, some autonomy can go a long way in helping employees maximize flexibility to suit their lives.
How to adapt to the new world of work
The easiest rule of thumb to follow in adapting to the new world of work is the very same advice as for recruiting and retaining employees: stay flexible.
Working from home may seem like a new and innovative approach to earning an income now. But concerns about isolation and the resulting negative mental health repercussions may entice some workers to return to an office of colleagues and friends. Just as no one could foresee the events of 2020 and 2021, it’s hard to predict the world of work moving forward. Providing flexibility to both employees, as well as to your organization, will help in consistently adapting to an ever changing world.
Optimum Staffing Solutions is a full-service staffing and HR agency serving both companies and job seekers alike. Optimum takes the stress out of the job and employee search–with over 50 years of combined hiring experience, we understand the business elements and bigger picture of staffing. We develop a deep comprehension of both client and candidate needs in order to find the right fit for you, lower time to fill, and continue to act as advisor and guide throughout the hiring process.
Whether seeking jobs or employees on a contract basis, temp, short- or long- term, remote or in-person, freelance projects or even outsourcing your HR department entirely, Optimum has the insight and expertise to destress staffing and help you succeed. For accounting, finance, IT, legal, marketing, HR, and engineering, Optimum is Staffing…Reimagined.
Curious how a staffing agency could help your business? Schedule a free, 30 minute Discovery Call with Optimum to learn more.