Employee Retention Is The Key To Business Success

A successful business is one that knows it’s product well and manages its people better. Because, it’s the people who form the culture of the company, bringing in the process that makes their products a success in the marketplace. However, every organisation has its own share of problems with employees joining and leaving them constantly.

Employees leaving an organization does not just talk about them, but it shows the culture and work environment of the company to the rest of them. When many good employees leave the organization, it sets a trend for others to follow.

Employee turnover vs. Employee retention

The cost of employee turnover is always higher than employee retention. Imagine recruiting and training a new set of people, where the new & old employees put in their time and effort to set or learn a new routine. Now imagine this repeated multiple times as employees come and go. It’s the time, effort and resources of the company and the employees that’s wasted.

While businesses put in a lot of effort in putting together the best product there is, they should also take efforts to motivate and retain their employees.

Good vs. Bad employees

A good employee brings up the morale of the workplace with their positive attitude. While a bad employee fills the place with negativity and brings down the morale. Both of these affect the workplace significantly. The former improves productivity, while the latter disrupts the flow of work.

A person who is adaptable, proactive and has integrity will be a team player, motivating themselves and the team. However, an employee who lacks all of these traits will find it difficult to stay motivated at work and it would greatly affect their colleagues as well. The key to managing people is to always know whom to retain and whom to let go. It’s the ones that bring down the enthusiasm in the team that needs to go, because neither are they happy at work nor the team that works with them.

What happens when your employee turnover is higher?

When you have regular turnover of employees, it affects the bottom line of the company as well as the morale of people who stay back. When there are many talented employees leaving the company constantly, they leave a sense of doubt in the minds of those who stay back about continuing to work. If you have employees interacting with customers, it affects your company’s relationship with the customer. Your employees are the face of your company and when there is constant change, your customers will notice and they might lose confidence in your company.

Related: Employee retention has never been more important than now

How to motivate employees and retain them?

It’s important to know what makes an employee unhappy in a workplace and help meet the gap. It is not always salary and a promotion that lures your talented employees to their next job. Lack of communication amongst team members or with senior leaders, uncertainty about their role in the company, lack of work – life balance are some of the reasons why employees leave a company.

A review with the team members about their performance will help them understand how their work contributes to the company’s growth. Recognising talent, training them to advance in their career and offering them benefits that motivate them to perform better at work are some of the ways you can retain some of your best talents.

What does this transcend to in the long term?

Businesses can benefit greatly by retaining their talented employees. When you have trained talent readily available at your company, you don’t have to spend on recruiting new people, the cost of training new people and the time spent by the new & old team members to sync into a routine is all saved. When employees are happy and motivated it directly contributes to a productive work environment and improved results. When you have a large team of talented people who have stayed with your company and grown over the years, it also motivates a new jobseeker to trust your company.

Building it from top – down

Employee retention is not a one-time strategy that’s down when you face large attrition. It has to be embedded in the company’s culture. Only when every person working in the company believes in retaining and developing talent, the working environment will improve and help employees stay motivated.

One of the finest examples of companies investing in their employees in order to retain top talent is Carmax. During the 2008 recession, the company decided to do something unexpected. They invested in training their employees instead of cutting down jobs and saving cost. The result reflects on their sales and they also constantly rank higher in “Great places to work”.

It is essential to take care of the employees and motivate them. Organising a fun group session or a Team building program will help reduce the stress of employees from every day work. Visit www.jambarteambuilding.com to browse some unique team building activities that you can organise for your teams, even for the ones that are working remotely.