The thing about having excellent employees is the annoying fact that other people are going to want them too. Top talent is always in demand. If you don’t give your employees plenty of good reasons to stay, there’s a chance they’ll end up tempted by another offer – but that doesn’t have to be the case!
The big benefits to reducing churn
The cost of recruiting and replacing staff could be higher than you think. The Telegraph reports that the cost of replacing an employee is £30,614 on average, That includes logistics, like advertising and agency fees, as well as the time it takes for a new employee to bed in. The cost for replacing top tier talent can be even higher, thanks to extended recruitment processes and complicated handovers.
Ways to retain talented employees
Here are a few handy suggestions for cutting down on churn and making sure your best people feel like they’re in the best place for them.
1. Take career development to the next level
While many employees will be happy with a slow and gradual pathway to a higher position, your most dedicated team members are going to be looking for more. Don’t let top talent languish and grow frustrated, be sure to introduce a well-considered and impactful employee development plan.
Work with your best people to discover what their strengths and objectives are and how they align with your company’s goals, then invest in training, learning and mentoring opportunities. Not only will this help your employees grow, but it will also increase loyalty and make them more likely to stay. For example, according to Gallup, strength-based training can result in a 20-73% lower attrition rate.
2. Pay attention to how engaged your employees are
Low employee engagement is one of the most powerful early indicators of future retention problems. When staff are struggling to feel connected to their colleagues, their work and the organisation as a whole, it’s only natural that they start to look elsewhere.
There are lots of ways to improve engagement, from focusing on improving employee wellbeing to introducing rewards. It’s smart to always be thinking about how to improve engagement overall, but be sure to also look out for the common signs of disengagement. That way you can intercede, make some changes, and hopefully help your best people reengage.
3. Build connection and belonging
Everyone wants to build a great culture – but how do you actually do that? It’s not as simple as hosting a pizza party at the end of each quarter. It has to start with building connection and belonging within your team, and ensuring that everyone feels valued. To do this, set up new rituals where you ask your colleagues to share things like their weekly wins, or who they’d like to shout out this week for their help. You could even give everyone a small reward allocation to share with a colleague who they want to appreciate each month. Slowly but surely, this will help to build the foundation of a great culture.
You can automate this ritual creation using Mo’s ‘Boosts’ functionality, where you can choose from a library of templates, or create your own.
4. Be sure you’ve got hybrid and remote working right
Now that hybrid working is here to stay and more and more people are working remotely for at least part of the week, it’s worth putting time into ensuring it’s running smoothly. Keeping employees motivated and engaged doesn’t have to be difficult, but it is different when you’re not all based in the same space.
You can boost remote employee engagement by putting effort into ensuring that there are frequent check-ins and opportunities to have fun – without overloading people’s calendars. Building a thriving culture gives your top talent a good reason to stick with you, so it’s well worth the investment.
5. Offer true flexibility and adaptability
Alongside opportunities for hybrid working, be sure to also prioritise the kind of flexibility that can make life easier for everyone. The majority of people will have caring duties at some point in their life and allowing employees to be flexible goes a long way. In fact, a 2022 report from Velocity Smart Technology found that 47% of UK workers said they’d look for a new job if they weren’t offered some form of remote or flexible working.
Let your employees know that you value them as people and that you want them to be able to maintain a healthy work-life balance, by finding ways to work around everything from routine childcare to unexpected issues. Whether that’s through compressed hours, flexitime or job sharing opportunities.
Show staff that their happiness and ability to juggle various commitments is important to you and they’re more likely to stick around.
6. Be confident you’re offering the right kind of benefits
While there are some benefits that appeal to the majority of people – plenty of holidays and a competitive salary, for example – there’s not always a one-size-fits-all solution. Some employees may be highly motivated by rewards or salary increases while others value professional opportunities for learning more.
The best way to make sure that you’re hanging on to the staff you want to keep is to find out what makes them tick. You may not be able to offer even your best workers everything they’re dreaming of, but it’s possible that you could adapt some policies or tailor some benefits to suit your best people.
7. Show respect, recognition and appreciation at every step
One powerful way to encourage talent to stay with your organisation is to make sure they’re getting the sort of respect and appreciation they deserve. This means respecting their time and other commitments as well as being sure to communicate in a respectful way. Even the most conscious leaders can find this a little tricky, so brushing up on effective communication for leaders is always useful.
Sharing your appreciation for their efforts is always welcome too. Whether that’s through regular appraisals, a rewards program or a powerful employee recognition platform. If you don’t regularly tell your top talent just how glad you are to have them as part of your team, then you run the risk of losing them to someone else.
Transform your culture with Mo
- Improve employee engagement scores
- Reduce employee churn
- Build a collaborative culture
Mo is an employee recognition and engagement platform that can help leaders improve collaboration and morale, reduce employee churn and drive change.
Our platform creates a vibrant culture by developing team habits, encouraging people to celebrate success, recognise results and appreciate colleagues.
Your complete toolkit for connecting and motivating teams in the new world of work. Book a demo with our team today!
