3 Best Practices for Improving
Employee Retention
In a recent column for The New York Times, Kevin Roose highlights a growing trend among millennial workers: quitting stable, well-paying jobs to pursue their true passions. This is happening, he argues, not in spite of the ongoing pandemic but because of it. The events of the past year have led many to reassess their priorities — and for some, that has included a realization that they simply don’t find their work fulfilling.
While many people don’t have the option to quit their job without something else lined up, this trend should be on all employers’ radars — because it could lead to rising attrition rates across the board in the months ahead. Prudential’s Pulse of the American Worker Survey, which polled 2,000 full-time U.S. workers in March 2021, found that one in four (26%) plan to look for a new job with a different employer after the pandemic. Among millennials, the largest generation in the workforce today, that number is one in three (34%).
With the cost of replacing a single employee
amounting to anywhere from a half to two times their annual
salary, taking proactive steps to improve retention
can save companies time and money down the line. Here are three key strategies
you can use, based on Prudential’s findings on why employees choose to
leave.
1.
Prioritize flexibility and work-life balance
After more than a year of working from home, many employees don’t want to return to the physical workplace — at least, not all of the time — and some are ready to quit if asked to. Prudential found that 87% of U.S. workers want to continue working remotely at least once a week, and one in three would not want to work for an employer that required them to be onsite every day.
With circumstances varying from country to
country, your company might not have finalized its return-to-workplace plan
just yet. But this subject is on employees’ minds, so providing as much
information as you can — even if it’s only broad strokes, rather than the
nitty-gritty details — will help reassure them about what the future holds.
At PwC, for example, flexibility has been a big part of the culture
for years, but leaders still recognized a need to
respond to the current moment. As a result, the company recently announced that
employees will have more control over the schedules moving forward, including
the ability to determine what time they start their workday
and what time they finish it.
Beyond offering flexibility around where and
when employees work, you can also promote a healthier work-life balance through actions and policies like
discouraging after-hours messages (including those from managers) and mandating
a certain amount of time off each year. With the pandemic taking a toll on many
people’s mental health, steps like these can help stave off fatigue
and burnout, which in turn supports higher retention and productivity and lower
absenteeism.
2.
Make it easy for employees to grow and to make lateral moves at the company
The days when people would stay in one career
track until retirement are largely behind us. Amy Schultz, global head of talent acquisition at Canva,
predicts that the future of work “is going to be more like a
rock-climbing wall than a ladder” as people try new things and discover new
passions. This makes internal mobility a critical strategy for keeping great
talent within your company — because if people can’t find new opportunities
internally, they will naturally look for them elsewhere.
Prudential’s findings back this up. Among workers who made a career transition during the pandemic, 26% said the change was spurred by a desire to try something new. Employees also rank mobility options as the second-most important factor that would encourage them to remain with their current employer, right behind flexible work schedules
For internal mobility to work, managers have
to be open to letting team members move around the organization, which may
require breaking deeply ingrained habits such as hoarding the best
talent. Uber uses hard data around retention to help managers
understand that internal mobility is a business priority, while Schneider Electric removed a policy that required manager
approval for a role change. Both companies also have an internal mobility
platform that allows employees to easily explore opportunities with different
teams and departments. This includes both full-time roles and shorter-term
projects and assignments, allowing people to dip their toes in, acquire new
skills, and make more informed decisions about what they want to do next.
Of course, some employees may like their current role and be uninterested in making a lateral move, but they still want to feel like their company is committed to supporting their growth. Prudential found that 49% of all employees surveyed are concerned about their career growth — and 80% of those planning to look for a new job feel this way. Among the latter group, six in 10 have also sought out skills training on their own since the start of the pandemic.
Providing learning and development resources
and opportunities to all employees lets them know that your company is
committed to supporting their growth. This can range from online learning courses to mentorship opportunities. Data from
LinkedIn and Glint shows that employees who see good opportunities to learn and
grow are 2.9 times more likely to be engaged than those who don’t — and an engaged
employee is one who’s likely to stick around.
3.
Increase salary transparency to create trust
While The New York Times article
makes clear that money isn’t the only factor that motivates employees, the fact
is that financial stability has become a bigger concern for many in light of
the pandemic and its economic fallout. A quarter (26%) of the employees who had
changed their line of work during the pandemic told Prudential that they did so
for a higher salary.
Raising salaries might not be an option right
now, especially if your company is still recovering from the devastating impact
COVID-19 has had on countless businesses. But there’s one step that can go a
long way toward ensuring employees’ feel fairly compensated and that’s
increasing salary transparency. As Leslie Miley, director of engineering at Google, notes in the LinkedIn Global Talent Trends 2019 report, it’s only natural for people from
historically underpaid groups to assume they’re still being underpaid if they
have no way of checking. Removing the secrecy builds trust and demonstrates
that your company is committed to pay equity.
There are a few different ways to embrace
salary transparency, so don’t feel that you have to make everyone’s exact
salaries public (although some companies, including Buffer, do take this approach). Many companies choose to share salary ranges, giving employees peace of mind that they’re
being paid a fair wage in comparison to their coworkers.
Taking
steps to improve retention will benefit everyone
Employees joined your company for a reason.
But if they start to feel like their career is stagnating, they’re being
treated unfairly, or that their work doesn’t fit comfortably around their
personal life, they may start to question that reason. By proactively addressing
these concerns, you can remind them what they loved about their work —
encouraging them to stay, which will eliminate the time and expense of
replacing them.
Every employee’s circumstances and goals are a
little different, so it’s important to listen and create opportunities for them
to share what they need to be successful. The steps above can combat many
common factors in an employee’s decision to leave, but as the talent
marketplace continues to shift, the companies that succeed will be the ones that
adapt their strategies accordingly.
#HR #Employeeretention#Employee # Retention
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