Top 6 ways to retain your best employees

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many employees to revaluate their values and priorities. This has led to employees switching jobs in droves. I’m sure you’ll agree that the skills, knowledge, expertise and experience of your employees is your most valuable asset.

Losing your top employees is likely to have a detrimental impact on your organisation’s growth. So, what can you do to retain your talent? Offering more money may seem the obvious way to prevent resignations. However, in a post-pandemic world where values and priorities have changed, employees are looking for more than money from their employers.

Here’s our top six strategies to help prevent your great employees from leaving your business.

1. Work-life balance

If we’ve learnt anything since the pandemic hit, it’s that no matter how much your employees may enjoy their job, there are things that are far more important to them. Their physical and mental health, spending quality time with loved ones, or even just the ability to switch off and focus on themselves.

Giving your employees the freedom to adjust their working hours around their home life is a powerful way of increasing employee motivation and satisfaction levels.

Flexibility doesn’t have to be a reduction in normal working hours. It may also be a change in start and finish times, longer lunch breaks or a change in the day-to-day business tasks.

2. Culture

Rules in the workplace are important to ensure that everything runs properly. However, when the rules are too rigid, employees can start to feel smothered. Most employees don’t want to work in harsh environments where rules are set in stone with no possibility of flexibility. Your business culture needs to adapt to change in business demands and employee behaviours alike.

Having a strong set of values that your employees can truly buy into is a great way to keep your employees engaged and motivated. Conducting employee surveys will allow you to capture your employees’ thoughts and feelings. You can then use this information to adapt your values. Employee surveys will also enable to you find out if employees are dissatisfied and offer solutions to any issues in a timely and effective manner.

Employees want to feel valued. Give employees the opportunity to share their opinion on selected business decisions and allow them more autonomy to make day to day decisions. This will go a long way towards helping employees feel valued.

3. Recognising and rewarding great work

Rewarding employees for a job well done is a great way to show your appreciation and keep them motivated. This doesn’t have to be a monetary reward. Believe it or not many employees value a “shout out” at a team meeting more than a change in salary.

Again, you could use employee surveys to help understand what motivates your employees and then find appropriate ways to reward them.

4. Review your benefits packages

Employees want to feel that their finances are secure at key times in their lives. Caring for your employees’ financial wellbeing can increase feelings of loyalty and help reduce turnover.

Consider offering benefits such as:

• Enhanced sick pay
• Enhanced family friendly leave such as maternity, paternity and adoption leave
• Life insurance
• Private health care

You can also introduce a flexible benefits package that allows your employees to choose the benefits that are most relevant to their own individual circumstances.

5. Clear path of progression

One of the main reason’s employees leave their employers is to grow their careers. If they’re unable to see a clear career path they’ll be tempted to look elsewhere. Encourage employees to develop Personal Development Plans and support them to achieve them. Consider offering support to take on additional training or spend time in other departments or roles to create avenues for growth.

6. Increased focus on mental health

Mental health has become an increasingly important topic. Have a plan for dealing with potential issues and offer training so that managers understand how to spot signs of depression or anxiety. Consider offering services such as counselling and therapy so that employees can access help quickly if needed.

Moorepay can help you with this. Take a look at our HR Services and Employee Assistance Programme to find out more.