Take a moment, and ask yourself, who are your top two employees? Now, imagine they both decide to quit one day. Do you know what you would do if that happened? How would you feel? Employee turnover happens more frequently as the job market becomes more competitive. Hiring costs are often overlooked and undervalued.
On average, it costs $4,000 to hire a new employee, not including the loss of skill, knowledge, and the time to bring the new hire up to speed. Doing your best in order to retain your employees should be a key concern for your organization. This not only avoids the high cost of hiring a new employee, it creates stability and the opportunity to further develop the entire organization. It’s tough to build a team if the players are constantly changing. Here are some quick tips to increase your odds of retaining employees:
1. Recruiting– Your best bet in order to find the best talent, and loyal talent, is to have a comprehensive and complete recruiting program. Make sure you guide them through the steps of the recruitment process early on, letting them know how things will go throughout the whole process. With a thorough recruitment process, this will help you put your best foot forward by essentially branding your organization as the best fit for them. They will understand what it is like to work at your company before they even start. It allows them to feel as though they are part of the team already, without actually hiring them yet. Your recruitment process should highlight the skills and qualities of candidates who fit with your organization. From there, you should be able to choose the right person for the job.
2. Onboarding– The onboarding process should be extensive, making sure the new hire is comfortable before day one. If you can make your new hire feel comfortable through the first day, anxiety is immediately reduced. You allow your new hire to quickly adapt to their new surroundings, thus becoming more productive quicker. Onboarding is more than a 1-day task. It should be a 6-month to 1-year process in which your employee is constantly engaged in learning and developing. Most organizations are starting to utilize onboarding software to ease the new hire into their new position. These are great tools for HR departments who are limited on staff or ones that are looking to save admin time completing required materials with the new hires. Onboarding is an essential piece to the puzzle of retaining your employees, so making sure your employee understands the culture and knows their role within the organization, your new hire will succeed and become productive at a quicker pace.
3. Employee Development– Allow your employees to constantly improve their skill sets by encouraging them to take courses or seminars in which they can better themselves, and in turn better your organization. Also, ensure that there is time allotted for them to improve their skill set by mandating a certain amount of time for training. If you continue to allow your employees to increase their knowledge, the more likely they will stay with your organization.
4. Employee Feedback– In order for your company to evolve, and learn, you must get feedback from your current employees. Send out surveys, have a sit-down meeting with employees, or just casually ask an employee how things are going. Any feedback you can get is good feedback, which will help improve your organization. If you give your employees a voice, you make them feel part of the organization.
5. Turnover– Regardless of how many steps you take to ensure that your employees don’t leave your organization, some turnover is inevitable. There will always be a certain portion who move on because of a better offer, change of career choice, or a move to a different location. As you continue to evolve your processes in which you try to increase your employee retention, keep in mind that reducing your turnover by just 1% over a year can have a dramatic effect on your bottom line.
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