It’s bad for your business when your workers are constantly leaving, not to mention the expenses that come with high rates of employee turnover. It’s vital to do something to retain your staff, but what?
So, without further ado, let us take a look at the top five retention strategies for new employees.
- Invest in your employees through upskilling
One of the ways to show new employees right off the bat that your company has their best interests at heart is to provide them with opportunities to grow and develop their current skills.
Invest in their growth by offering days off or half-days to allow them to attend webinars, conferences or in-house training. Encourage them to study alongside their work to better themselves and take advantage of the learning opportunities available to them to improve staff retention rates.
If employees sense that they matter to the company they’re a part of and are valuable assets to their team, they’re a lot more likely to stay than if they feel undervalued or unappreciated.
- Offer flexible working
There has been a huge rise in the numbers of people working from home in the midst of and in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Employees have found that working from home is beneficial in creating and maintaining a work-life balance, and as many as 76 percent of workers agree that working remotely full-time was the best-case scenario for them.
Whilst it is certainly not achievable for most businesses to make three quarters of their staff base remote, it is still vital to take into account what works best for your employees, and try to incorporate this into their roles as much as possible.
- Mentorship or ‘buddy’ programmes
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and not know who to turn to when you’re a new employee.
One way to prevent this is by teaming up an older employee with a new one. Both employees have the chance to learn something from one another here, thereby increasing the efficiency and happiness of your staff.
- Offer incentives and rewards
It goes without saying that rewards are one of the most effective ways to motivate employees. These employee rewards show employees that you view them as people as opposed to working machines and value their time and effort. You’d be surprised at how effective things like free gym memberships, counselling sessions and attendance bonuses are at getting and keeping staff!
- Openly communicating and recognising achievements
As touched on previously, employees want to feel valued for their work. If they never receive recognition for the work they do, they may reach the point where they don’t think it’s worth bothering.
When an employee does something worthy of recognition, let them know! Sharing ‘job well done’ awards during staff meetings, for example, show employees that they’re appreciated, improve morale and can encourage employees to stay.
So, there you have it. The top five retention strategies for new employees. Hopefully you now have a clearer idea of what it means to have a high staff retention rate, as well as how to obtain and keep your new employees.