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Employee Retention - How to keep your staff happy and high morale

Now that you have hired the right person, you want them to be a part of the organization for many years to come. The less turnover, which is the coming and going of employees, the better. It reduces costs, keeps morale high, and you get full return on your investment. You need to keep your new hires, and existing staff, happy and content as discussed in lesson 3.

Finding the best people who can fit within your culture, and contribute within your organization, is a challenge and an opportunity. Keeping the best people, once you find them, is easy if you do the right things.

These 16 specific actions will help you with recruiting and retaining all the talent you need:

Be known as a great company to work for. If your company has the reputation as being the best, people will not want to leave. Why would anyone want to leave a place they love? A place where people envy and wish they were able to work?

Be known as a great boss to work for. You want your employees saying, and truly meaning, that you are the best boss. Implementing all of what is taught in this course will surely help make that happen.

Point to keep in mind; it is more common for people to leave due to quality of supervision than any other reason. You do not want people leaving because of you, or your supervisory staff.

Always provide the right tools and training. The easier a person can do their job, and the more they know about their job, the more likely they will be comfortable and not want to leave.

Continue to promote the best. You want your employees to know that when they strive to be the best, they can be promoted and grow with the company.

Pay better than the competition. Although this is fairly obvious, and has already been mentioned earlier in this lesson, it is still worth mentioning again.

Use your influence to have, and keep, the best benefits package. This helps you personally, helps retain your employees, and helps the company as a whole. People will not want to leave a company with a great benefit plan. Even if the competition pays better, knowing you are secure in benefits can outweigh the other. This includes medical, dental, life insurance, and retirement. Matching 401k’s are also a big incentive to stay with the company for the long-term.

7. Have a company bonus plan. If the employee knows that they will get a bonus if the company hits the yearly goals and targets, the more likely they are to stay. Even if the company missed the year-end bonus target, there is always the hope for next year. That right there just helped retain an employee for an additional 12 months.

8. Offer stock options. This is a great way to keep people for 4 or more years, due to most options are fully vested by the 4^th year. For example, 25% vested after year 1, 50% vested after year 2, etc.

9. Offer tuition reimbursement. As long as they are with the company, and are taking a course that is related to their position within the company, it’s a win/win situation when the company pays for tuition fees. This helps retain the employee for at least a year or two, and people tend to stay with a company that treated them so well, even after the course is through.

10. Competitive vacation package. The longer you are with the company, the more vacation time is added. For example, you get two weeks vacation after years 1 and 2, three weeks vacation after year 3, four weeks vacation after year 4, and max out at five weeks vacation after year 5 and beyond.

11. Provide cross training. Employees who learn what others do usually want to aspire to learn more and train harder. It takes time to learn new skills, which means they will stay with the company for quite some time.

12. Inspire employee feedback. An employee who is afraid to share ideas and concerns is more likely to explode with bottled up emotions, and then look elsewhere for a job. There will be employees who are quiet and seem content, but inside they are fired up. They do not say anything because they are afraid of retribution. Encourage openness as described throughout this course.

13. Parity amongst departments. If one department is getting all of the perks and recognition, and the other departments are ignored, you will have some disgruntled employees. First off, don’t let the ignored department be yours. Second, make it a point that fairness and equality is established. You might need to explain that certain department’s function differently when it comes to commission and perks. For example, the sales department gets paid by commission, and might get a better reward than you can give to your staff as customer service manager. Your job as customer service manager is to make sure your staff is aware that if sales do not sell, they do not get paid. The trade off between a steady paycheck that your staff receives, and the possibility of a great reward that sales might receive, should offset one another.

14. Do not rule by intimidation. When people feel intimidated and threatened by you, you might achieve short-term gain, but the employee will leave the moment an opportunity presents itself.

15. Keep to your commitments. People do not trust a boss who is all talk with no substance, thus will want to leave. Always follow up no matter what the circumstance. Always keep to the meeting you have scheduled, the events you have planned, or the promises that you made. Even if you give information that the employee does not want to hear, the fact that you respected their idea enough to follow up will earn you respect. When they respect you, they will not want to leave you.

16. Make sure they feel like they are part of the “in crowd.” Treat your employees like they are special and that working for you is cool. They should feel they are part of a team that is looked at as “the best of the best” with respect, and even awe.

Your goal is to make it to where there is no reason for your key employees to leave other than that of a brand new experience or relocating. There’s not too much you can do about that. The chances of high retention are also higher when you hire the best as described throughout this lesson. This is just another reason why hiring someone with a good attitude who shows integrity is such a good thing to do.

Key employee retention is extremely crucial to your department and the company’s success. Retaining your best employees ensures a solid future along with customer satisfaction and higher sales no matter what kind of department you run.