In addition, hiring talents is not a cheap affair. Let’s say for example you are expanding internationally to say, India. You probably have no idea about company and labor laws. You will need to hire a local expert to help you with company formation in India as well as hiring top talents if you are to set up a business compliantly.
Considering the struggle of finding top talents and the cost of hiring them, it is paramount to put in efforts to retain them in your organization. If you are to win in this area, a comprehensive employee retention strategy is needed.
Here is how to formulate one in three easy steps.
Assess the current situation
Before anything else, it is important to know how good or bad your employee retention efforts are currently. Remember that retention efforts should start right from the recruitment process to the onboarding and continue throughout the duration a worker stays with you. As you analyze the situation, you must put into account all these phases.
Ask yourself how good you are in finding the right people for the positions. You can measure this by considering the number of days new hires spend in training before starting the job.
Next, analyze your onboarding process. How good or bad is it? Are there employees who have left the job during the onboarding process? What were the reasons?
Thirdly, measure the risk of losing your current top talents even with employee retention efforts in place. Assessing the general atmosphere at work will give you an indication of how things are. However, the best place to find these insights is from the employees. Conduct employee surveys to gather feedback on various aspects of your employee retention efforts. Seek to find out how happy and satisfied they are with their jobs. How committed and engaged in their jobs are they? What is contributing to the situation?
Lastly, analyze the external factors that can potentially influence your current workforce. Seek to understand how your competitors are doing in this sector. Is there a risk that your employees can jump ship to work for your competitors? In addition, analyze the job market situation. How are others doing to retain their talents?
Make a list of actionable strategies
With the data at hand, the next step is to compare where you stand in perspective to the information that you have gathered. Looking at the job market and your competitors, where do you place yourself. Look at the practices that you can adopt to enhance employee retention.
From your employee’s feedback, look at the areas of strength and weaknesses. The idea is to understand the areas that you can improve to enhance their happiness and job satisfaction.
After coming up with a list of possible actions, it is important to consider if they are viable. At the very least, they should be sustainable, effective, and affordable. For instance, if their unhappiness is caused by a harsh manager, you can decide to constantly train your managers on people skills so they can learn how to treat people better. This is an action that is good in the three aspects. On the other hand, if employees say that they need a car to be happy, buying them a car each can be effective, but it is nowhere near affordable or sustainable.
It is important to involve your employees in this exercise. Conduct one-on-one meetings to ensure that you are considering each individual’s opinions. Hold brainstorming meetings and encourage everyone to contribute. At the end of the day, you want a plan that is inclusive and actionable.
Implement
The last step is to implement the strategies that you have decided on in step two. Here, you will need the help of your managers to ensure that the best practices are maintained in every corner of the workforce. Remember that these efforts should be set in motion from the word go. As you recruit new hires, be very keen to find individuals who align with your company culture. Ensure that the retention efforts start from the first day a new employee joins the organization.
Conclusion
Now that you have a strategy in place, your work doesn’t end there. It is important to be agile and constantly assess how you are doing as an organization. Continue looking for things you can improve, change, or eliminate from your strategy. At the end of the day, you want to achieve a happy and satisfied workforce as per their current needs.