What is employee retention?
The definition of Employee retention is termed as the organizational goal of keeping talented employees and reducing turnover by fostering a positive work atmosphere to promote engagement, showing appreciation to employees, and providing competitive pay and benefits and healthy work-life balance. Employers are particularly interested in retaining employees during periods of low unemployment and heightened competition for talent.
To retain employees, organizations use human resources technology for recruiting, onboarding, engaging and recognizing workers and offer more work flexibility and modern benefits like physical and financial wellness programs.
Why is employee retention important?
High rates of employee turnover can harm organizations' ability to carry out their mission because of impairments to continuity, loss of institutional knowledge, and high costs of replacing departing workers. Diminished productivity and competitive advantage are among the biggest losses caused by employees leaving an organization.
Employee departures can also lower morale and spur more employees to quit. Staff retention is also important to team building and cohesion in the workplace, so workers can come to trust and depend on each other.
Another negative effect of turnover is the impact on customers, who can notice that they are dealing with a continual flow of different people.
What causes employee retention?
As we have taken a look at the definition of employee retention let's take a look at what causes employee retention, here are some reasons;
- Free food service
- Gym membership
- Unrestricted WFH
- Health insurance
These are thoughtful initiatives taken by organizations. However, what happens in those situations where employees feel like their well-being is not a priority? Further, what happens when the organization realizes that its employees aren’t taken proper care of. How does the organization find a remedy to resolve this? If ever employees feel the organization doesn’t care about their well-being, they simply leave.
The truth is, there is no easy fix, but small and simple steps towards reformation will definitely help the employees, as well as the organization. This reformation will help in job retention and keep the best players in the game.
Note: Standardize expectations to improve productivity
This is possible when you treat all employees equally and don’t provide special treatment to any one particular employee or a team. This way, all employees receive fair treatment and nobody will get a chance to misuse or abuse a privilege. It isn’t quite easy to maintain such a level of management where there is absolutely no bias in the system but it isn’t impossible either. There are many ways in which you can ensure that you are consistency and transparency across teams and individual team members.
What is employee retention strategy?
Involving your employees emotionally will help you to increase the job retention rate for good. In fact, emotional involvement encourages employees to contribute and not just perform or complete their KRAs. Employees need a sense of security that their employers care for them and their well-being.
Further, loyalty lies in caring. It is anyhow not quite easy to manage a perfect work-life balance. When there is assurance that your organization cares for your needs, managing both lives become less hectic. This further contributes to employee satisfaction which leads to staff retention.
Build a purpose-driven organization where your people follow their dreams, without restrictions. We live in an amazing time where people are free, at least in the majority of the countries. They want to explore more with their skills and contribute towards the success of your organization. In fact, you want such people to work with you who are passionate and love taking ownership. This way your A-players and best team players will stay with you for long. That’s what helps you increase your employee retention. Take time, think back, reflect on your employee retention strategy and win the market place as you win your workplace!
ThEmployee retention definition by some authors
"Retention is a voluntary move by an organization to create an environment which engages employees for the long term”
Chaminade Cascio (2003) perceived retention as initiatives which the management takes to prevent employees from leaving the organization. The author Brown (2005) claimed that an orientation program which is designed appropriately, “ whether it is short or long, will improve retention of employees.”
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