5 Winning Strategies to Retain your Employees

Employee engagement is a formula that HR managers have been trying to crack for long. Given the increasing rates of employee turnover, they are struggling to find the right way to engage employees. Should you be concerned about it? If you see the figures below, you will definitely be, in case you aren’t.

A research study conducted by Gallup has confirmed that firms in the top quartile of employee engagement scored better on customer ratings by 10%, profitability (22%) and productivity (21%) as compared to those in the bottom quartile. Further, a report by Gartner highlights that 70% of business stalwarts consider employee engagement as critical to attaining positive business results.

The crux is that poor employee engagement not just affects workforce retention, but also your bottom line. Take a look at how you can cultivate an engaging environment for your employees and drive better results in your business:

1. Move Beyond Attractive Pay Packages

Yes, enticing salaries do attract employees and keep them invested in your business, but, think twice, is that all they need? There are other factors too that contribute towards giving your workforce the motivation to stick. The environment they get at work, relationships they build during their stint and appreciations they receive are the things that hold more value than an enticing paycheck. Combine these with a decent salary and your employees will love working in your organization.

2. Begin from Day 1

Companies usually mistake employee engagement as an annual or six-monthly affair that includes fancy parties and lunches once in a year. This is a common perception many firms have about engagement, which is clearly misconstrued. Instead of keeping them as one-time affairs, you got to be consistent with your engagement endeavors. Begin from day one of an executive’s induction. Launch onboarding activities that are focused on training new recruits and helping them become experts in their specific roles.

3. Train Your Managers

It’s essential for you to ensure that your organization’s goals trickle from those at the leadership position down to your field executives. Managers can play a key role here if they are trained in the right way. Make your managers understand your company’s mission, vision and workplace etiquettes. This will help them instill the same values in their teams and integrate their efforts and goals with that of your organization. Once you see this happening, leave no opportunity to appreciate the contribution of your managers in keeping alive the work culture of your organization.

4. Appreciate and Acknowledge

Motivated and satisfied employees do better at work and are more likely to stay with your company for a longer period. Positive feedback gives them the confidence that they are an integral part of your organization and that their efforts count. Recognition is instrumental in keeping the workforce engaged and thereby, in reducing employee turnover of your business.

5. Be Technologically Forward

Walk shoulder to shoulder with your millennial employees, by optimally utilizing technology in all your business processes. Paperwork can be a big turn off as much as not having a proper mechanism to fetch information, collaborate with colleagues and keep track of latest updates. Your tech-savvy workforce is always on-the-go, demanding instant gratification. To cater to this need, you can create an internal knowledge base that has all the necessary information in one place. It will save your staff going from pillar to post to get relevant information, in turn it can boost collaboration among teams and ultimately foster better engagement.

Merely dumping all information at one place won’t suffice, if you want to realize the real purpose of knowledge management. Here are a few tips that will help you create a structured and defined knowledge base for your employees:

• Include the right mix of content and multimedia
• Use WYSIWYG editor to write and edit content
• Package your knowledge base with suitable fonts and themes
• Bring your employees together to create your knowledge base
• Make your knowledge base easily accessible
• Choose the right knowledge base software for creating an internal knowledge repository for your workforce

Creating an in-house knowledge bank for your employees can give a fillip to your efforts, thus promoting a collaborative and supportive work environment.   

In a nutshell

Keeping your employees engaged in the need of the hour since they form the core of your organization. Your experienced and skilled executives are your assets. Hence, giving them a healthy, challenging and engaging environment is of utmost importance so that they stick with you and continue to work towards your vision and mission.

This can only happen once you and your employees are on the same page, with regards to your organization’s roadmap. When you and your workforce will have a healthy reciprocatory relationship, productivity will shoot up and your growth graph will take an upward swing.