Why Companies Should Prioritise Retaining Their Employees
Darren Westall
February 3, 2023
Recruitment
What is talent retention?
Once you’ve got good employees, you want to hold onto them.
Talent retention is a process businesses use to identify and motivate their top performers. The goal: create an atmosphere of appreciation, reward and recognition to ensure employers are best placed to retain their most talented employees.
What’s the point of talent retention? Why does keeping employees matter when you can just hire more?
Retaining top talent can:
- Drive profit
- Increase productivity
- Improve employee morale, loyalty, and engagement
Talent retention is important as it can help a business maintain a high-performing workforce, allowing them to couple the experience of their current staff with the expertise of incoming new hires to find the right balance of knowledge, technical skill and collaboration.
Let’s break down the best ways to retain talent and what it can do for your business.
Celebrate and Support Your Team
It’s known in business that happy customers are loyal customers. By the same logic, happy employees are loyal employees.
One of the biggest drivers of talent retention is showing employees they are valued. In fact, 55% of all employee engagement is driven by non-financial recognition.
A successful talent retention strategy requires a deep understanding of the collective skills and expertise among your team members. Recognising and rewarding team members for their efforts goes a long way to ensure employees feel appreciated and involved. Show appreciation for individual skills, talents and contributions. Acknowledge efforts both formally and informally, and avoid singling out any group or individuals for recognition. This enables you to properly celebrate their successes and acknowledge the value your employees provide.
Of course, this doesn’t mean just blindly praising your employees. Balancing celebration with support as they develop will show your commitment to their growth and that you care about all that they do. Identify challenges and opportunities by analysing your team’s skills. This is key to identifying any roadblocks on the way to a successful talent retention strategy.
Strike a balance between verbal feedback, a comprehensive system of rewards and salary reviews, financial incentives, appreciation gestures, and career development opportunities.
Get to know what skills your team has, as well as what everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are, to personalise your praise and offer solid feedback for employees to feel recognised by.
Listen To Your Team
Observing and celebrating your employees from afar is only one piece of the puzzle. Actively listening to your team is key to talent retention. This involves establishing a clear line of communication and being open to ideas from employees of all levels.
How to effectively listen to your team: develop effective communication strategies, facilitate employee flexibility, and promote professional development to ensure everyone feels comfortable discussing issues, ideas and errors in the workplace.
Developing Effective Communication Strategies
Transparency and open dialogue are key components of a productive work environment. Encourage active discussions and involvement, allowing employees to express their opinions and ideas without feeling they’ll be overlooked. Ensure everyone has the confidence to share their input and have it taken seriously.
Use a mix of formal and informal channels of communication. For example, office surveys, direct contact, catch-up meetings, open forums and feedback platforms.
Offer Flexible Working Arrangements
Flexible working arrangements such as flexible hours and hybrid or remote working can drastically improve employee engagement and morale, making them more likely to remain in the company for longer. Balance these requirements with the business needs and growth objectives to ensure everyone can benefit from these arrangements.
Promote Professional Development
A combination of on-the-job training and external learning opportunities should be offered to ensure employees can continually develop their skills and capabilities. Employees who feel professionally recognised and rewarded for their efforts and learning are more likely to stay in the job for longer.
How Talent Retention Benefits Your Business
1. Drive Innovation
Talented employees can help to drive innovation, which is essential for staying competitive in today’s fast-paced business world. They can bring new ideas and insights to your organisation, helping to create better products and services for customers.
2. Boost Profit Margins
You can increase your profits and reduce your costs by retaining top talent.
Happy, loyal employees work harder and with more passion which translates into a greater ROI. Did you know that companies with highly engaged employees report 20% higher sales?
Likewise, retaining talented employees helps you save on costs associated with onboarding and training new employees. It also helps to create a culture of excellence, encouraging the best and brightest to flourish in your organisation.
3. Reduce Turnover
Talent retention can help to reduce employee turnover, create a more stable workforce, and ensure that valuable skills and knowledge are retained. This strengthens your business and ensures valuable skills and knowledge are retained, rather than having to be constantly replaced.
Assess Your Talent Retention Strategy
Successful talent retention requires employers to prioritise their employees and create an environment where they can thrive. This can be done by:
- Analysing your team's skills
- Celebrating and supporting employees
- Understanding their needs
- Listening to ideas and opinions
- Offering flexible working
- Promoting professional development
Continue to assess the environment as your talent retention strategy progresses, identifying any further skills or development opportunities and risks. Regularly review the effectiveness of initiatives such as performance management systems, reward and recognition schemes, and professional development programs to retain your talented team.
The long and short of it all: keep your employees happy to keep your business thriving.
Paiger Tracks Your Talent
Paiger is more than just a one-trick pony. In fact, it’s more than just a content scheduler, creator, and business development tool combined. Paiger helps employees and teams build their personal brand, expand their network, and more. All these successes and metrics are tracked so that you can keep track of your top talent and give them the feedback they deserve.
Book a demo today.
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