Retaining survivor employees is more important than ever considering that building a superior workforce is one way to establish a sustainable competitive advantage. There is even a new group on LinkedIn dedicated to the topic of employee retention. An About.com article on employee retention calculates that losing a middle manager costs an organization up to 100 percent of the manager’s salary while the loss of a senior executive can cost more than double the executive’s annual salary. This week I will present five tips to retain employees and another five tips will be presented next Monday.
1. Encourage and reward teamwork effort
Many projects in the workplace are best tackled by team effort and by offering employees the chance to work in teams working relationships can be strengthened. Be sure to define each team member’s role in the project and also list the rewards that can be achieved if the goals of the team are met or exceeded. Often clients of mine reward teams for delivering projects on time and on or under budget and many also reward team members for the success of the project after it is implemented.
2. Recognize equal effort with equal rewards
Recognizing and rewarding workers equally is essential to employee retention efforts. Nothing can kill an employee award program or morale in general than treating employees unfairly when equal effort is given towards completing a goal. “One often-overlooked form of recognition is praise,” claims a Utah Pulse article on employee recognition. “Saying ‘thank you’ for a job well done costs nothing-and can be very powerful.”
3. Offer opportunities for career advancement and development
Often clients will work with their employees to develop a mentoring and training award program to improve employee retention. Offering such opportunities for employees allows workers with experience to transfer their knowledge before retirement while allowing less experienced workers the chance to develop and advance their careers.
4. Provide consistent recognition
Thanking employees goes a long way, and according to one employee retention expert, accompanying the thank you with a recognition gift makes the thank you even more appreciated. Regardless of your award program budget, thanking co-workers and staff members for the contributions should be a weekly if not daily event for managers. This consistent feedback acknowledges employee contributions and that employees are working towards the mission of the company.
5. Establish a recognition culture
Peer to peer recognition award programs help organizations to build a culture of recognition where any employee can recognize and thank co-workers. Often peer award programs involve a nomination approval process and encourage employees to recognize others by rewarding both the nominator and the nominee with recognition gifts. Employees of the month or quarter can also be selected from the pool of approved nominations submitted to further highlight employee contributions and help to establish a recognition culture.
Please check back next week to learn five more tips for organizations to consider when working towards higher employee retention.
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