Losing great talent can be extremely costly. A single entry-level employee can cost upwards of $30,000 to replace, and those costs only climb when you are replacing a senior-level employee, a manager, or an employee with specialized skills. Not only is losing an employee expensive in terms of recruiting and onboarding costs, but it also costs untold amounts of money in employee morale, potential overtime, lost continuity and employee and client satisfaction.
If you are looking for actionable strategies to retain your best people, take this advice from expert recruiters.
Competitive Pay Impacts Employee Retention
Money isn’t everything, to be sure. But the fact is, money talks – especially if you aren’t paying competitively in your market. Talent people can go anywhere, even in a tight market. You never want to rest on your laurels when it comes to pay rates. If you haven’t studied market rates lately, now is the time to make sure you are paying at least as much as your competitors.
If you’re not sure you can afford to offer competitive pay, you might want to consider perks that can make up the difference. Do you offer:
- Employer match on retirement accounts
- Great healthcare benefits
- Generous PTO policies
- Remote work opportunities
- Healthy work-life balance
Things like this are worth promoting if your budget isn’t quite in line or you fall at the lower end of the pay scale for your market.
Additionally, it can pay to work with a staffing or recruiting company to evaluate your pay rates.
“A common challenge we face is meeting the moment with clients on equitable and competitive pay. Compensation remains a key driver on the retention of staff across all verticals. At Partners, we bring years of expertise, market analytics, and data points to assist our valued customers in retaining staff during this era of immense change.”
Andrew Morgan, Executive Recruiter
Retain Top Employees By Investing In Their Professional Development
To remain relevant, people in every field must continually develop their skills. Most talented people don’t mind working on skills development in their spare time, but if you want to retain your highest-performing employees, it pays to invest in their futures.
There are lots of ways to do this, including:
- In-house skills training
- Tuition and certification reimbursement (even partial reimbursement is a good draw)
- Mentoring between senior employees and new employees
- Set clear career paths that allow employees to know what skills and experience they need to move up in the company
- Sponsor employees to attend seminars and conferences
Great employees value learning and development, and they are more likely to remain loyal to companies that support them in their efforts to grow professionally.
“It is our associates who make Partners Personnel’s success a reality. Getting the best candidates, retaining them, nurturing the best work environment & helping the associates to grow is the key to recruitment and retention.”
Laura Vyhnal, Client Specialist
Promote (Wisely) From Within
Talented people usually aren’t happy staying stagnant in their careers. They want to move up. When you have internal openings, encourage your internal team members to apply before conducting an outside search. If a good employee sees no room for growth, they will move on.
It’s also important to promote wisely when looking internally. Seniority-based promotions and promoting friends are the least effective ways to build strong leadership teams. Promoting the wrong people can hurt an organization by making teams less effective and increasing turnover. Talented people want to work for leaders they can look up to and who they respect, and promoting the wrong people can crush employee morale.
Only promote people with demonstrated leadership potential, who set a good example by working hard and making valuable contributions, and who can inspire others to do their best work. It pays to create a formal leadership development program, as well. It shows employees you have an interest in identifying strong leaders and that the company wants good people to move up and lead teams.
To Retain Good Employees, Coach Poor Managers
You’ve heard the old cliché that people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers. That cliché is rooted in truth. The number one reason why people leave their jobs is because of their boss. If you have managers who are experiencing higher-than-average turnover, it is important to take a closer look at what’s going on. Coach struggling managers to help them become better. In some cases, you may have to cut ties with a poor manager in order to stop turnover.
Sit Down With Employees Regularly
Typically, the employees who get the most attention from managers are those who are struggling. It’s easy to spend a lot of time with employees who need help, but all employees need face time. Ignoring people who are doing their jobs well sends the message that they are not valued. Take time at least once per quarter, but preferably monthly to meet with every employee individually to review goals, talk about challenges, provide feedback and learn what employees want from their jobs.
Have A Strong Onboarding Process
An employee’s first few days and weeks on the job will set the tone for their tenure with you. If the onboarding process is disorganized, too slow or nonexistent, you will have trouble retaining that employee for any length of time. A good onboarding process increases the chances a new employee will come back after their first day, stay over the course of the first 90 days and will feel part of the organizational culture.
Be sure to keep new hires busy in their first few days. Use a schedule so they don’t have to wonder what to do next, and stay on top of that schedule so you can check in and see how things are progressing. Sticking to a schedule also ensures that the process will move much more efficiently than a process mired by disorganization.
Retention Starts With Recruitment
All of your best efforts to retain great people will be for naught if you’re not attracting and hiring people who are well-aligned for success in your organization. This means you must have strong process in place to be able to identify people who have the right skills, but who are also aligned with company culture and values. Misaligned employees are much more likely to leave your employ – and quickly.
A high turnover rate can point to a lot of internal issues from pay to management to burnout, but an overlooked area is often the hiring process itself. That’s where an expert staffing and recruiting partner can help.
“Retention begins with the candidate life cycle. Oftentimes, we see the stagnation, apathy, and turnover that originates from a lackluster recruitment process. Tedious applications, excessive multi-round interviews, and lack of follow up result in a poor applicant experience. At Partners Professional, we streamline this process for both the candidate and employer. Candidates have a dedicated recruiter that serves as their advocate and agent throughout the selection process.”
Andrew Morgan, Executive Recruiter
Are You Ready To Improve Employee Retention?
If your company is looking to improve retention at the source, or you need advice on things like job descriptions, sourcing, vetting and hiring, work with the professional recruiters at Partners Personnel. Our team helps employers of all sizes with strong hiring practices designed to identify well-aligned candidates who add value. From Industrial to professional, entry-level to specialized roles, we can help you attract and retain great people who will keep your company operating at peak performance.
“We aspire to be more than a ‘temp’ service. We are employment specialists who guide great people into fulfilling work that improves their lives and delivers a dependable and productive workforce for our clients.”
Mark McComb, President
Contact your local Partners Personnel office today to learn more.