3 Key Strategies for Improving Current and Future Employee Retention

With an economy that's improving slowly but surely, jobs are opening back up for job candidates. But while you’re focusing on bringing in the best talent you can, there’s also another concern: you might have more positions open than you originally anticipated.

Just as new job candidates are coming in, you want to make sure you’re managing your retention efforts with your current employees - or risk seeing an unexpected amount of turnover.

Retention is always (or should always) be at the forefront of every talent acquisition team’s mind. After all, the cost of retaining someone is far less than the cost of recruiting, hiring, and training someone else.

In a recent article on LinkedIn, expert Ritika Puri collected key employee retention strategies from fellow hiring and talent acquisition insiders.

The article, The Recruiter’s Role in Boosting Employee Retention, takes a look at some of the ways recruiters can help ensure current employees are being retained. However, we feel these points extend beyond just the recruiter, and should be knowledgeable to anyone in the company who has a stake in employee retention. 

How to Improve Employee Retention

1. Education about the cost of losing talent: By now it’s no secret that losing talent is far more expensive than keeping talent. In fact, even if an employee is underperforming when they leave, it can be costly. But how costly are we talking? Well, according to a statistic cited in the article, “employee replacement costs are 1.5 times their annual salaries,” citing that if multiple people leave you’re looking at costs in the hundreds of thousands at least.
   
   So, what can you do to help improve employee retention in your organization? Chief Talent Strategist at Qwalify, Phil Hendrickson, recommends calculating how much you could potentially lose when you lose talent, and evaluating that number with members of your talent acquisition team. Understanding just how costly it can be to lose an employee is a real eye opener most don’t have because they “ball park estimate” how much it costs. It’s vital that you don’t leave this to chance, however, and start understanding the true cost behind employee attrition so you can start planning to prevent it.
   
   
2. Bring Your Best Up: ‘Where are your current employees now, and where do they want to go next?’ This is a great question to consider, especially if you’re looking to hire for roles including managerial or supervisory positions. Sure, bringing in outside talent is never a bad thing, and provides some unique perspective, but moving your current employees up when they’ve shown they’re ready to take on more responsibilities shows a commitment to them on your part - a commitment that they’ll be inclined to return with loyalty.
   
   You also have the added bonus of these employees speaking highly on behalf of your company, talking about the great opportunities to grow in the organization and how exciting it was for them to start and ‘look at where they are now’ type of deals. This honest enthusiasm can be great when it comes to your company brand, recruiting, and finding referrals.
   
   
3. ‘What’s Your Greatest Weakness?’: Nobody is perfect, and deep down we all know that to be true. However, just because your company may have a flaw doesn’t mean you should try to sweep it under the rug with your employees and future candidates. Be honest and open about where you need to improve upon - first with yourselves, then with your employees and candidates.
   
   Improving employee retention means setting goals to improve aspects of your organization, and then working towards meeting those goals. Seek feedback from both a recruiting standpoint from your candidates (“what’d you think of the hiring process?”) and from your employees (“what things can we do to keep you happy?”) Not only will candidates love the honesty, but they’ll also be able to understand for themselves what it would be like to work at your company and make an informed decision. This works to your benefit - the candidates that continue interviewing are the ones that want to be working there, and won’t be a contributor to early stage attrition. Likewise, showing your employees you’re dedicated to delivering a work environment that will help them will keep them dedicated to you. 
   

Improving retention starts long before your employees' first day of work - it starts during the hiring process. Learn how talent assessment tools like job simulations can help you find, hire, and retain top talent by downloading your free copy of the whitepaper below.