Employee retention is an important focus that often gets lost in the bustle of running your own company. However, just as metrics like customer retention are important, so too is employee retention. Employee Benefit News found that the cost of replacing an employee can be 33% or more of their salary. Between interviewing, training and onboarding, the time lost adds up quickly. So, how can you ensure employees don’t leave a month into the job? Here are 4 tips for improving employee retention at your company.
1. Make sure employees are the right fit culturally, in addition to the right fit for the work
Typical interview processes focus on the job description and work an employee will take on once hired. While this is, of course, important, it’s important to also check whether the employee fits in with your company’s goals, existing team, and culture. Here are a few questions that can assist with gauging if a prospective employee is a good culture fit within your company:
- In what type of work environment are you most productive and fulfilled?
- How would your previous coworkers describe your work style
- What management style helps you do your best work?
- What were the positive and negative aspects of your previous work environment(s)?
- What values do you care about at a company?
While this may seem obvious, hiring the right employee from the onset will do wonders for retention.
2. Foster a transparent environment
Creating an environment where open, transparent communication is valued is an easy way to ensure your employees feel heard. It can be easy to become complacent with an open-door policy. However, when bringing in new employees, you need to make sure you’re making a proactive effort to communicate with your team members.
Additionally, set up regular meetings and employee reviews to allow for designated spaces to discuss issues, goals, feedback, and anything else an employee may want to speak about.
3. Provide clear paths to development and advancement
Make employee professional development a clear focus at your company. This can include budget for things like attending conferences, taking classes, or company-wide corporate training.
Additionally, internal promotion demonstrates to employees that their work is valued, and they have a future at your company.
4. Build a strong company culture to maximize employee retention
Finally, in order to maximize employee retention, make time to foster your company’s culture. Again, there are a variety of ways to achieve this. Make time to celebrate accomplishments, small and large, plan company-wide excursions, schedule coffee chats between different team members – anything that makes employees feel like they’re really part of the team.
