Read the 10 ways how to retain talent in your organisation.
Table of Contents
1. Focus on Training & Career Planning
Employees would like to have a clear career path on how their career could evolve, including the compensation and benefits. Make sure you have a well-prepared training plan for employees for at least 2-4 years. The well-trained managers with their leadership styles can stimulate in retaining the best employees. The new generation workforce is more in favour of a coaching – than a managerial leadership style.
2. Show Your Appreciation (do not think employees know, cause they don’t’)
Encourage employees and focus on what they are doing right. Show your appreciation, give them a compliment, and show that you are proud. Employees need to know that the company is valuing their efforts.
3. Offer Remote Working
Remote work is becoming more and more effective. However, not in every company it is common as still managers are strict in their 9 to 5 approach. They still want to have control, are afraid of bad performance and company security. To retain talent in the company, working from home is an essential way to get the work done. The new generation employees are multi-taskers and would like to experience freedom and flexibility.
4. Increase Responsibility
Improve the performance of your employees and increase their responsibility in their daily job. Involve them in the decision-making process, ask for their opinion, make use of their knowledge and create sub-groups to tackle problems to find solutions.
5. Create Effective Processes – Keep It Simple
Make sure your processes are “lean & mean”. Most of the work processes are slow and could be more effective. Involve employees in setting the standard, create an efficient workflow and reduce “waste” / time spending on over complicated or unnecessary procedures.
6. Retain Talent – Simplify HR Policies
Keep your HR policies in your employee handbook simple. Be flexible as for time off regulations. The shift in regulations is needed, as 8 hour presence in the office is not always effective Time off regulations could be arranged by the employee if the company is deciding to let the employee have more responsibility and if there is a check and deadline in place when the work needs to be done. In order words: the daily job should be provided in small projects per task with clear quality instructions, planning and deadlines.
7. Set Up a Referral System
When you need more top performers in the company, a referral system could be an option. The employee is promoting a friend or relative to the company and a compensation (in money) will be given to the employee. One piece of advice, please make sure those applications not end in a black box. Provide the candidate and the current employee with a status update, have a clear recruitment process in place for referrals and communicate to applicants who are in the selection pipeline.
8. Clear Communication
With all the communication towards employees and outside the company, the tone of voice and the type of messaging is important. Are you using company language with long passive sentences or using a more informal but effective way of communication?
9. Track Retention & Start Exit Interviews
To get more awareness what can be improved in the company, the talent that is leaving the company could provide you with some insights. Retention interviews are necessary and a good opportunity to ask the employee what is working in the company and what’s not. However, do not wait until it is too late by asking what could change, have a yearly employee survey and keep track on those findings.
10. Company culture based on trust, loyalty and freedom
Create a company culture that is based on trust, evolving employees in decision making processes, have clear structures and regulations. Is your organisation still thinking of competition too much, and engage with employees in the ways of tenure and hierarchical processes? Then you need to see that this “old” way of working is no longer sufficient. We need to think in communities. Employees are the Human Capital of an organization, the engine of any existing company.
