‘The Great Resignation’ has had a global impact over the last year or so. Many businesses have been forced to evolve or lose their best talent due to more and more people realizing what working benefits they can get at other companies, as well as what company culture they truly want to be part of. So, how do businesses deal with high team turnover? What can be done to prevent it?
Here are our top tips for how to keep your quality employees.
Re-training or developing managers
Many people leave a good job because of a bad boss. If their direct manager is not aware of how to manage different personalities, is someone who micro-manages, or a person who simply needs some growth and development, employees may begin to question whether they want to stay in that job. Focus on manager/employee relationships and ensure your managers are properly trained not only on technical expertise but especially with their leadership and soft skills.
Stay interviews
In a recent Chandler Macleod article, we look deep into stay interviews. From our most recent article:
“You may have heard of an ‘exit interview’ which is conducted when an employee leaves your organisation. However, due to the ‘great resignation’ and current market trends, it is clear we need to be understanding what can keep our high performing employees around before they choose to leave. This is where stay interviews come into play.
Stay interviews are management led conversations with your current employees. Although they can be casual, they should also be intentional and cover two main topics:
- What it is specifically that keeps employees happy to stay with your company,
- and if there is anything which could be improved. “
It is important to listen and act on feedback from employees stay interviews so that they can see the effort you are taking to care for employees.
Keeping up with market salaries/rates
If you are lagging behind and not paying your employees the standard rates in the industry, employees are likely to look elsewhere for better financial opportunity. This is not always the case, especially if your company culture is amazing, however it is important to make people feel valued in their role. This is one way to incentivize your employees to stay with your company.
Keeping up with market flexibility standards
Additionally, work-life balance is at an all-time high level of importance. Where work flexibility is not available to employees, many people will search for a role or workplace that will allow them better work-life balance. Make sure you have high quality flexibility policies in place and make flexible work a priority in your organisation.
Focus on team culture and employee engagement
Company culture and employee engagement should be a designated focus for every HR team. It’s incredibly important that companies focus on checking in with employees and maintaining and measuring employee engagement to better understand what employees need to feel satisfied in their roles.
Do what you say you will do
If you make promises or preach certain values, ensure you are backing these claims with actions, and communicate any action to your employees so they are across all that you are doing and achieving in your company.
Recognize and reward
As mentioned earlier, it is very important to make employees feel valued. If you can’t afford to increase salaries to a higher level across the board, it is important to implement other means of benefits and rewards. Recognition programs and performance reviews will help keep employees feeling motivated.
Prioritize career opportunities and professional development
One of the biggest reasons people leave their workplace recently is lack of future opportunities or professional development. When people feel like they can no longer grow in your organisation, they will try to grow elsewhere. You can prioritize development programs or literally create opportunities within your organisation for high performing employees who want the chance to achieve more with your organisation.
