5 tips to boost retention

Is your organisation looking to boost retention. Recruitment and retention concerns are at the forefront of a lot of senior management professionals at the moment. The Labour Market Outlook for spring 2022 states that almost three quarters of employers are looking to take on new staff this year. 45% of employers say they have hard-to-fill vacancies. 

Added to this, according to a blog by McKinsey & Company, the rate of people leaving their jobs for new roles reached an all time high in the fourth quarter of 2021. A survey from HR news of 1200 workers also found 2 in 5 are considering leaving their current employer. 

These combination of factors (and we aren’t even touching on Brexit, post pandemic burnout for some sectors or the percentage of workers looking for remote working!) is creating a perfect storm for employers wanting to maintain or grow their company headcount. 

The labour market has never been this tight and employers will want to consider not only how to make their recruitment offer more attractive to a large candidate pool but, perhaps more importantly, how to retain their existing workforce.  

Here are 5 tips from Quarsh to consider when looking to improve retention rates at your business. 

• Consider culture – is it what you think it is?

Review the culture by conducting employee surveys and having conversations with staff members who can be considered ‘ideal’ fit into your desired culture to gain ideas and insights. Then collate the gathered information to identify the current culture and compare it to the desired culture. Use gap analysis to plan how to get from existing to desired if it is not where you would like it to be. 

• Mentor your managers – are they reinforcing company culture?

A surprising number of businesses do not provide formal management training to individuals who are promoted into the role. Being great at a specific role does not automatically mean a person will be a great manager. It requires a completely different skill set and one which can, and should, be taught. All managers should be trained using the same approaches and tools in order to ensure company wide culture is consistent. This should be supplemented with individual mentoring to address specific weaknesses. 

• Employee engagement – is your team motivated to deliver their best?

Conduct an employee engagement survey to discover motivating and demotivating factors. Design a strategy to make the most of aspects of the business employees find motivating and minimise or remove demotivators. Train managers and other key staff in motivational techniques to continue boosting levels.

• Dedicated development – are you keeping your promise?

According to Deloitte’s global survey of 2022 the top reason respondents chose to work for a company was good work life balance. The second highest priority was learning and development opportunities. Make sure you haven’t promised training and career development to new starters which you then don’t deliver as the day to day job requirements take over. Implement individual short, medium and long term development goals for all employees. Create training programmes for established career routes and training material for other paths.

• Work on wellbeing – are you looking after employee mental health?

Deloitte’s survey highlights that Gen Zs are regularly stressed or anxious, nearly half say they feel stressed almost all, or all of the time. Nearly half of both Gen Zs and Millennials feel burned out due to their work environments. Nearly half of both groups say people have recently left their organisation due to workload pressure. Employee wellbeing has a huge impact on retention levels and productivity of your workforce. Implement wellbeing policies and awareness, appoint wellbeing champions and ensure mental health support is well signposted across the entire business.

If you would like any more information on how to boost retention levels at your organisation get in touch, we would be happy to help.