Having a stable workforce helps companies tackle long-term projects with greater guarantees of success. Staff retention should therefore be a strategic priority. Unfortunately, up to 4.5 million employees quit their jobs every month, which can create challenges for the workforce.
When a company is about to undertake an employee selection process, it is common for it to invest a large amount of human and economic resources. However, these resources could easily be wasted if, after the incorporation of new employees, the same interest is not put in improving employee retention.
Employee retention can lead to gains in competitiveness and productivity compared to companies with high levels of employee turnover. This is influenced as much by operational disruption from instability and staff turnover as it is by a lack of employee engagement. Retaining the best talent is a great investment in the future.
IMAGE: PEXELS
The good news is that you can help improve retention by taking the right steps, which include identifying warning signs an employee might leave and working with consultants like Talent Keepers.
What Is Employee Retention?
Employee retention can be defined as the phenomenon where an employee wishes to remain with his or her current company. At the same time, employee retention is a business indicator that shows the degree of commitment of the workforce and the availability of Human Resources to face new challenges.
Sometimes, retention is a completely natural occurrence, due to the right combination of incentives from the company and goodwill on the part of the employees as they are comfortable and satisfied in the company. At other times, it is necessary to resort to employee retention strategies to make employees feel more convinced to stay with the company.
According to a study reported by QuestionPro, 41% of employees who quit their jobs last year did so because they were dissatisfied. This is a higher percentage, for example than those who quit to grow professionally or change jobs.
Why Employee Retention Is So Important
Having excellent human capital is not an easy task. Companies have had to devote a lot of time and resources towards building a particularly valuable workforce. Therefore, if employee retention is neglected, the company will have made a terrible investment and will likely have to re-invest to cover absences.
At the operational level, excessive staff turnover always results in:
- Dysfunctions
- Lack of communication
- Lack of trust among employees
- Little or no alignment between employees and the company’s mission and values.
- Reduced sense of responsibility or lack of commitment to ongoing projects.
- If employees feel that they are just passing through, their involvement can plummet.
As a result of all of the above, the company sees its competitiveness suffer in comparison with those companies that have been able to have stable workforces over time. All this needs to be done without forgetting the need to convene and manage recurring recruitment processes, with all the challenges that this entails.
Also, in relation to this, it is increasingly common for companies to take greater measures to ensure performance in each and every one of the phases through which a professional goes through must be taken care of. In our guide, we explain how technology can give that extra factor to the Human Resources department.
Myths Of Employee Retention
All too often, employee retention techniques are brushed aside because employee departures are seen as reasons that companies can do little about. This is actually part of a series of myths that should be discarded in order to improve talent retention.
They are often blamed on the following:
- Better economic conditions: many companies simply assume that employees leave because they have received better offers.
- Mismanagement of pressure: another widespread sentiment is that professionals who leave the company do so because they cannot withstand the pressure and it affects their mental health (in other words, because they are weak).
- Staff retention cannot be measured: the most backward companies in terms of business digitization believe that they do not have tools to measure employee loyalty.
- Lack of judgment: thinking that the employee does not know what they want is another way of not investigating the ultimate reasons for leaving.
- Errors in the chain of command: managers and supervisors may have a great influence on employee retention, but many aspects are beyond their control.
Companies must avoid falling into these traps.
Symptoms Of Employee Retention Issues
You need to identify reasons for retention problems. The symptoms will help you understand what might need to be done to turn things around. The delay in implementing employee retention strategies is also often explained by the inability to appreciate the evidence that part of the workforce is dissatisfied.
These are the most common pre-symptoms when an employee is considering leaving the company:
- Decrease in productivity: employees are not machines and their productivity may experience ups and downs. However, if there is a clear downward trend in productivity, it may indicate a lack of commitment.
- Poor collaboration and apathy: if the employee is not collaborative with the issues for which he is required and shows a certain indifference to what surrounds him, his mind may be more outside than inside the company.
- Questioning corporate objectives: this is a critical aspect because if the employee feels that the company’s objectives are not appropriate, the risk that he/she will end up leaving the company increases significantly.
- Absences and tardiness: when a professional who has not had discipline problems begins to accumulate tardiness and absences, he or she may be considering changing jobs.
- Low long-term commitment: if long-term strategies or projects are presented, and some employees are unenthusiastic or even evasive, it could be due to their willingness to leave the company.
You must recognize these symptoms and consider taking action to ensure greater retention.
If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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