Retaining employees is important for the organization due to the high cost of recruiting new ones. An organization needs to ensure that employees stay for long. Employee retention is the ability of a business to keep its employees. On the other hand, it can imply the efforts and strategies companies make to retain their employees. These are aimed at reducing costs incurred in hiring new employees such as training costs and costs of recruitment.
What can an organization do to increase employee retention? The solution lies in having employee retention strategies that are aimed at resolving the issues causing the high employee turnover.
Recruitment and selection.
Using the appropriate recruitment and selection methods can help in retaining new hires. The employer should be straight forward to the applicants about the job in terms of its positives and negatives as well as challenges, to recruit hires that will stay longer.
The selection process should also be thorough also to include objective methods such as using biographical data to determine if an employee is likely to stay longer or not based on their life experiences such as their educational experiences and how long they stayed in their previous jobs.
New hire onboarding
The first impressions matter and this applies even to new hires. A company should implement an onboarding process that easily integrates new employees. The onboarding can be extended for up to a year for continual learning. Proper onboarding and orientation help to increase retention.
Mentorship in which new hires are assigned a mentor to take them through the hurdles of work can help in increasing retention.
Organization culture
A company can adopt an organization culture that promotes employee growth such as employee recognition, training, and development, giving employees competitive benefits.
Having competitive pay and benefits can help to retain employees. Some of the benefits can include retirement plan, life insurance, health insurance as well as perks such as telecommuting and flextime. Some employees leave a company in search of better benefits and pay.
Employee recognition acknowledges employees efforts. Employees are likely to stay longer in an organization that recognizes their efforts. Training instills employees with knowledge and skills that can help them to grow their career. Employees who receive training tend to stay longer with a company
An organization can put in place a program to help employees achieve their career goals by providing them with growth opportunities. This way, employees are likely to remain longer with a company so that they can achieve their career goals.
Leadership
The type of leaders in a company can mean the difference between a high and low retention rate. Effective leaders ensure they have good relationships with their direct reports. They motivate employees, maintain open lines of communication to help with sharing of ideas between the employees and management, provide feedback, coach employees and promote teamwork. The leaders can be equipped with these skills by providing them with executive coaching.