Is your company doing the best it can to retain your top talent? As they say, good help is hard to find, which is why it is so important to have a workplace culture that makes employees feel that they have purpose and potential for advancement. As time goes on, you cannot simply count on an employee to stay with your organization just for the paycheck.
People need more to satisfy their needs, or else they will move on to the next opportunity without a second thought. That is why a quality employer must provide a culture of caring and the opportunity for advancement. Big changes may have to be made, but in the end, your best people return the favor by making your business more successful.
Here are a few retention tips to consider.
1. Promote a Growth Mindset
Most people apply for a job hoping that it will lead to bigger and better things, but if the position doesn’t offer advancement opportunities, they may look elsewhere. A survey from Deloitte found that a skills-based approach increased retention by 33%. That is why organizations must foster a culture of continuous learning and development. Doing so will help you attract and retain your dream employees.
That said, it is never too late to create a workplace that encourages advancement. Start by looking at your business plan to determine the main areas of focus, as well as the skills and roles that will be needed to meet these goals. Then, define and link learning objectives to the skills and knowledge needed for both individual and company success.
Learning leaders and managers alike must take the time to speak with employees and gather feedback to understand their career goals and determine the training they’ll need to achieve them.
2. Provide Continuous Development Opportunities
Learning and development (L&D) opportunities are essential to employee advancement and overall satisfaction. Moreover, organizations who had a skills focus were able to improve financial performance by 41%, and workforces saw a 26% increase in opportunities to innovate.
To build employee skills, you must offer training that enables them to improve on the abilities they already have (upskilling) as well as learn new skills (reskilling). After you’ve identified skill gaps, assessed employee skills and created personalized skills development paths, training plays an important role in this ongoing process. In general, instructors and training materials play a supportive role as employees develop new competencies.
The training program could offer a number of online courses from which they may choose, based on what they want to learn. You may decide to provide in-person instruction or on-the-job training with the help of management, staff who already have the know-how and skills, or consultants.
Provide a variety of training modalities such as videos, webinars, or simulations that are best designed to tackle specific skills or concepts. Provide access to the types of tools they’ll need to use in their actual roles. Consider gamification that allows employees to test skills, meet checkpoints, and receive evaluations before leveling up. Throughout this process, the role of training is to provide options — there’s more than one way to learn — as well as positive feedback to employees. Overall, it’s essential that they feel they’re in a safe space where they can make mistakes as they learn.
3. Create a Safe Environment
Since most employees spend a third of every day at work, they want that space to be safe with managers who have their best interests at heart. Create a culture of safety within the workplace with policies and training that keep everyone up to date on dangers specific to your industry, along with what steps to take when injured. Safety training can take the form of dedicated sessions you host either virtually or onsite. These sessions should be tailored specifically to your organization’s safety concerns.
Safety training can be scenario based, and should prioritize employee engagement through interactive modules, such as role-playing sessions and games. A truly safe space also protects employees’ mental health and overall well-being. In an effort to retain employees and show them that their well-being is a priority, employers should encourage health and wellness programs such as brief training sessions that highlight the importance of exercise, getting enough sleep and general health awareness.
Encouraging employees to take breaks and lunches is also a key retention point that some companies don’t prioritize in an effort to increase employee productivity. Beyond adhering to legal requirements and improve the employee experience, allowing people the opportunity to step away from their work for short breaks during the day is actually better for the business too. These breaks can boost creativity, result in fewer employee injuries and provide the focus that people need when they return to work.
When it comes to retaining employees, it all comes down to showing them that you care about their success at work and beyond. Give them a chance to prove themselves, live healthy lives and be their best selves, and they will likely stick with your organization for the long haul.
