There are varying views on the cost to a business when an employee leaves. Values range from 30% - 70% of salary, and included in these figures are the cost of replacing the employee with recruitment costs, training, lost productivity, embedding etc..
There have been several factors influencing the current employment numbers, post Covid 55+ employees deciding to take early retirement, more people taking on multiple roles, and a reduction in EU employees post Brexit.
The uncertainty of the next two years, brings many challenges for employers, not least the challenge of recruitment and retention. Adopting some affordable and sensible strategies can significantly reduce the exiting of key employees and provide a good reason why new employees should join your business.
Employee retention and engagement starts at the leadership level
Today, employee engagement is considered a business imperative, as more organisations realise the impact that an engaged workforce can have, not only on the bottom line, but also on the overall look and feel of an organisation.
Employee retention and engagement will never be higher than your leader. Everyone is an employee within the organisation, from a frontline employee to the CEO or MD. And organisations have to be concerned with the engagement at all levels.
Many leaders don’t consider that they might be an impediment to employee engagement, however. Leaders, especially frontline leaders, will underestimate the influence that they have on the engagement and retention levels of their teams, often quoting pay, the work itself, or competition, before themselves.
The first step to getting leaders engaged in their teams is to show them the influence that they have. But fewer than half of organisations measure the engagement effectiveness of individual leaders.
Team engagement surveys can provide a good insight into how leaders are perceived within the business and within a particular team or department. The results from these focussed survey can provide insight for the business in supporting a leader to understand and act on the influence they have.
Really listen to employee feedback, and follow through
Engaged leaders are effective communicators and listeners who are able to build trust among their employees—and trust in the cornerstone of employee retention. Listening to employee feedback is both key to leadership style and a regular part of your company’s business operations.
At our recent People Puzzles conference, Mark Robb shared a great survey developed by Gallop, the formation of which I believe will support and underpin great listening, understanding and ability to provide feedback to your employees, you can see the list of questions by following this link.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/356063/gallup-q12-employee-engagement-survey.aspx
Create and support an inclusive culture
When it comes to business strategy, many businesses will state that employees don't care much about the strategy, and most cannot articulate it when asked. To a degree thats true, but what leaders don't want to hear, is that often, the reason for this lack of engagement is the strategy often talks about shareholder value, profit, or intangibles.
If you want to build an inclusive culture to increase retention and attract new talent, the strategy must reflect the values of the organisation and resonate with employees. I really like this vision and values on a page, its engaging, provides clear communication of what your business is about, and captures relevant objectives that will engage and build a culture of trust and inclusion.
Invest in employee growth opportunities
When looking at the reasons people leave their jobs, money is often not the main motivator. At Amazon, engagement survey results illustrated that people were leaving because of the work and the roles they were in.
Another reason employees leave a job is a lack of career advancement opportunities.
One employee retention strategy to keep ambitious workers is to create more in-role growth opportunities so they can advance more quickly. For instance, develop entry-level positions into six positions instead of two or three. This way, employees can advance by a level every six months rather than having to wait two to three years. Pay raises and new titles do not necessarily need to accompany each role level.
If you engage with employees, listen to them and understand their career aspirations, coupled with capacity and capability, you can provide a path that will stimulate retention and engagement. Remember, it's not always about a race to the top, most employees just want to be recognised and supported in the role they do.
Go deep with exit interviews
According to a Harvard Review in 2019, over 75% of businesses conduct an exit interview with employees. I can fully accept that number, but I would contest and ask the question, how many businesses really act on the data collected?
In fact, the same Review by Harvard found that 99% of businesses were either not acting on data received or were completing the exit interviews with little chance of extracting valid data.
Think about it, how many employees are likely to give a frank and honest assessment as to why they left the business, if the person asking the questions works for the business.
Utilising a third party to collate data and present back to the management team will provide a much richer insight into why employees are leaving and this, couple with the Gallop questionnaire I linked earlier, starts to build and create a culture where retention matters.
Employee retention means investing in your employment brand
Effective, multifaceted engagement with employees of all types is hard—but replacing them is even harder and more expensive. Leaders and organisations that invest the time to figure out what employees need to stay engaged in their roles will be most successful in keeping them. A strong employee retention strategy will also appeal to a happier, more productive workforce who inspire and elevate others around them.
Comments
Post a Comment