- Appreciate and recognize employees
Majority of employees who quit do so because they feel underappreciated. This was proven by Forbes, which noted that 66% of employees quit because they feel underappreciated. To genuinely show that small businesses value their employees, they must celebrate yearly anniversaries and milestones where employees are rewarded and honored for their contributions towards the achievement of certain goals or their performance. When employees do something exceptional, they should be rewarded financially or through promotion, or both. Every exceptional performance should never go unnoticed. Such simple gestures will improve retention.
- Ensure transparency in hiring and promotion
Invest in the recruitment process and ensure that candidates with the right skills and temperament are the only ones hired in your organization. Make the expectations of the company and the job duties clear during the interview to ensure that candidates know what is required from them and only those suited for the role are hired. Those hired will stay longer because they are suited for their duties. Without the right hiring decisions or lack of communication during the recruitment process, you may incur costs because employees will quit regularly or have to let some go because they are not suited for the positions they occupy.
- Offer advancement opportunities for employees
Developing a career path for employees is one of the leading retention strategies that should be adopted. Although this is not always easy, you can take simple approaches such as regular training and internal promotion to give your staff morale. Also, give strong performers more responsibilities to grow their careers and learn new things. As they manage to handle more workload, promote them and increase their pay instead of hiring new employees to fill the vacant positions. Set aside a budget you can use to send your employees to conferences, seminars, or workshops as one way of investing in their knowledge. Such conferences and workshops add them more skills to do the work better.
- Improve compensation and benefits for the employees
Although good employees are not motivated by the finances only, offering them a fair salary or hourly pay commensurate with the value they create increases retention and attracts new talent. Regularly audit the salaries of your staff and adjust them to meet the market conditions and realities. If you have promoted an employee, increase their salaries to match their new roles. If the profits have increased, you might consider adjusting the pay. Always assess the salaries in the market and pay your employees the prevailing payment scale depending on the position. Also, consider other things such as overtime pay, insurance, vacation, dental insurance, and maternity/paternity leave.
