With employee turnover at its highest levels in 10 years, how can businesses keep hold of their skilled staff and increase employee retention?
Contractors are an invaluable resource to the global Aerospace & Aviation, F1 & Automotive, Engineering & Defence industries, but many businesses are suffering from low retention rates of permanent hires and senior executives. The threats and opportunities brought by Brexit, globalisation, and advances in technology make increasing employee retention a priority for leading businesses and SMEs around the world.
How To Keep Employees Engaged:
5. Give Both Constructive & Positive Feedback
Whilst everyone likes being praised and recognised for their hard work and achievements, constructive criticism is equally important for employee development. Staff members can’t perform well unless they know what is expected of them, and they can’t improve if they don’t know what they’re doing wrong and how to fix it.
Your best employees will be those who seek frequent opportunities to learn and grow in their careers, knowledge and skill sets. Set and regularly review SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely), combined with a transparent career progression scheme to motivate employees and help them visualise and achieve the next steps in their career.
4. Offer a Unique Benefits Scheme
The best companies don’t always offer the highest salaries or day rates – one third of employees count benefits packages amongst their op considerations when job searching. An excellent benefits package can attract new hires, help existing employees to feel valued, engaged and involved, providing an additional motivation for greater loyalty and improving employee retention.
Many industries will operate with similar sets of values and ways of working, but benefits packages aren’t dictated by outside forces and can instead be moulded to suit the needs of your employees, such as flexible working, home working, cycle to work schemes, volunteering opportunities and discounts.
Benefits of a recruitment career at VHR include:
-
Annual Summer Trip Abroad
-
Private Healthcare
-
Early Finish Fridays
-
Monthly Social Events
-
Loyalty Holiday Incentive Scheme
Find out more about working at VHR.
3. Communication
Transparency around company progress against short-term and long-term goals encourages all staff, from interns to Board Directors, to feel proud of their contribution and part of a greater purpose. Promoting awareness of positive company performance helps employees feel secure in their jobs (particularly the back office who often have limited access to sales figures) and regular communication from senior management will engender trust across the company, increasing employee satisfaction and staff loyalty.
2. Foster & Promote a Positive Workplace Culture
Creating a positive environment can be as simple as taking small but powerful steps to ensure employees feel heard and appreciated. A positive workplace culture involves an inclusive environment that encourages collaborative working, trusts and empowers staff to make decisions and helps individual workers feel good about themselves and their role in their team and company.
With freedom from micro-managing and more autonomy, employees have the time and space to create and innovate new ideas and new solutions to old problems. A change in company culture can have wide-reaching impacts to increasing employee retention and improving the bottom line.
1. Hire the Right People – Right from the Start
With the average cost of replacing an employee over £30,000, business leaders can save valuable time, money and resources by making the right hires in the first place. An agile recruitment strategy that is continually reviewed and improved can ensure your business is appealing to the wants and needs of specific demographics like millennials, and compete with the recruitment process and employment packages offered by the biggest players in your industry.
Partnering with a specialist recruitment provider that supports your existing HR department will help to reduce staff turnover and increase employee retention by attracting the skills and experience to match the needs of your business.
Looking for technical recruitment services? Get in touch with our technical recruitment experts.
Find out why your business needs RPO, or learn how to attract Gen Z employees.