Picture this: a top performing employee keeps their head down and goes great work and rarely complains. As a result, they get assigned the most important and high-priority projects to work on. Leadership has big hopes for this person, incorporating them into the company’s succession plans. Suddenly, this employee gives their two-weeks’ notice and accepts a job elsewhere. You and your team are blindsided. You now have several key projects left hanging with no one to drive them forward. What happened? And was it predictable, or worse, preventable?
Whether you’re an HR professional or a people manager, you’ve probably experienced the blow that comes from an unexpected resignation. But whether resignations are expected or considered a “regrettable loss”, the fact is that employee turnover costs organizations significantly. In fact, the Work Institute’s 2021 Retention Report suggests the following range of estimates:
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From $15,000 for replacing an employee earning $8 per hour
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Up to $50,000 for those making $40 per hour
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Up to 213% of the salary for highly specialized roles
With this in mind, the ROI for designing and implementing talent retention strategies is undeniable.
Additionally, the high rate of resignations is not slowing down. HR consulting firm Mercer recently revealed the results of its 2023 US and Canada Turnover Surveys in its article – How much turnover is too much?. It said: “The average rate of voluntary turnover due to employee resignation (17.3%) was much higher than the rate of involuntary turnover (4.8%), where the company terminated the employee.”
Between the cost to your business and the rising rate of turnover, there is a critical need to adopt effective talent retention strategies for retaining your star players and staying competitive. And here are nine brilliant ways to do just that.
Talent Retention Strategies for Modern HR Operations
As you’re aware, one of the primary objectives of HR is to retain top talent within the organization. This calls for strategic planning and the execution of benefits, compensation, and training programs, and other programs to maintain high job satisfaction levels. And high approval ratings ultimately lead to improved employee retention.
The following HR functions are crucial for progressing in this area:
- Optimize Your Talent Acquisition
HR leads the process of attracting, interviewing, and selecting qualified candidates for open positions within the organization. And the first step in retention begins with acquisition and onboarding.
So, get ready to master practices such as:
- Measuring quality of hire – Conducting quality of hire analyses can massively refine your hiring practices, ensuring new hires are not only skilled but also great cultural fits.
- Better onboarding – A robust onboarding experience is a must, because it’s the bridge between hiring a candidate and integrating your new hire into your company culture. Leveraging a leading system like Onboard by HireRoad can streamline this process, ensuring new hires feel welcome and prepared from day one.
- Cultivate Career Development
Growth opportunities within the company are a major factor in employee retention. For this reason, powerful talent retention strategies typically include opportunities for:
- Staff training
- Stretch assignment and long-term goals
- Internal mobility
- Clear career paths showing employees they have a future with your organization
Accordingly, an elite LMS like Learn by HireRoad is game-changing. It makes light work of organizing training programs and professional development opportunities to improve employees’ skills and knowledge. This supports and promotes an engaged and evolving workforce.
- Build a Culture of Recognition
Spread a sense of belonging and appreciation by celebrating individual, team and overall business achievements big and small, Reward and recognition programs are known to boost staff morale and engagement. But they call for more than just acknowledging success if you want to make a real impact. Moreover, how can you harness reward and recognition to reinforce and bake in the behaviors that lead to that success?
- Prioritize Work-Life Balance
The reality of burnout highlights the importance of work-life balance. Unsurprisingly, it’s a growing focus for progressive organisations diving into improved workplace wellbeing. In today’s hybrid work environment, we are seeing talent retention strategies jam-packed with initiatives like:
- Flexible working hours
- 4-day work weeks
- Wellness days
Need further inspo? Check out the businesses flagged for doing it well by US News’s Jamela Adam in her recent article The Best Companies for Work-Life Balance:
Brunswick Corporation
- Who? – Designs and manufactures recreational marine products such as boats, marine engines and accessories. Based in Illinois has 19,800 employees and operates in 29 countries
- Ticking the box for work-life balance – “Offers various wellbeing programs to encourage employees to make healthier lifestyle decisions. For example, in 2023, all benefits-eligible employees could earn a discounted 2024 medical plan rate if they completed a health check survey and two preventive care activities. Also empowers employees to focus on their lives outside of work by offering perks, such the opportunity to enjoy the boating lifestyle with their product purchase programs.”
Etsy
- Who? – Consumer-to-consumer online marketplace that allows users to sell their handmade or vintage items, crafts,and products. Based in New York, amassed 7.5 million active sellers and 95.1 million active buyers
- Ticking the box for work-life balance – “Offers one of the most comprehensive and competitive work-life balance benefits. Full-time employees get to take unlimited sick or mental health days, enjoy a fully paid four weeks of sabbatical leave every five years and take 26 weeks of fully paid parental leave (regardless of gender) if needed.”
Then there’s HireRoad‘s “Free for All Fridays” – a company-wide day off occurring one Friday each month. This is a testament to our own company’s commitment to the balance between work and personal life.
And don’t forget, moral support works wonders too. So, keep encouraging vacations. And make sure line managers are keeping an eye on workload manageability, What might seem like small gestures make a big contribution to a healthier, more productive work environment.
- Collect Employee Feedback
One key mechanism to avoid getting caught off guard by employee turnover is to gather valuable insights into the employee experience by regularly collecting feedback through methods such as:
- Pulse surveys
- Skip-level meetings
- Stay interviews
This feedback is key for tailoring relevant and effective talent retention strategies to meet your people’s needs and exceed their expectations.
- Competitive Compensation
Involved with compensation strategies and payroll, besides employee benefits package? Then you need no convincing about the imperative for competitive and fair compensation in line with company budget and market trends.
Actually, the regular benchmarking and re-alignment of compensation is a double whammy. It:
- Reduces the risk of employees leaving for better paid jobs elsewhere.
- Helps in attracting top talent when you’re hiring
- Coach People Managers
Smart talent retention strategies recognize managers play a pivotal role in keeping their teams engaged. For this purpose, providing managers with the necessary training and resources to engage and develop their teams makes a mega difference.
Remember, employees don’t leave companies. They leave managers. This is why it’s paramount to equip managers with the right tools and skills.
- Build Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
HR operations increasingly strive to cultivate a positive and inclusive workplace culture by implementing DEI policies. This entails more than throwing some corporate buzzwords into the conversation. On the contrary, it’s about taking measures to ensure all employees feel valued, respected, and that they belong.
To this end, the correlation between DEI and retention is clear. DEI programming contributes to a more engaging and innovative workplace. As for employees who feel they can bring their full selves to work… They’re more likely to stay and contribute positively to both the company culture and overall business success.
- Develop a People Analytics Program
Last but not least, there’s the final piece of the puzzle that pulls everything else together. Enter a state-of-the-art HR analytics program. Fielding employee engagement surveys or offering new training courses isn’t going to move the needle, if you can’t effectively track progress and trends back to your retention rates. In order to build an effective talent retention strategy, you a clear way to measure and define success. People analytics solutions such as PeopleInsight by HireRoad can help you develop targeted talent retention strategies and provide data-driven insights into the factors impacting your employee turnover.
It empowers you to better understand the drivers of retention and engagement rates, by connecting metrics back to your other HR data. This greatly enhances the position of HR operations across key outcomes by informing your decisions based on objective data.
Closing Thoughts
Investment in talent retention strategies is a surefire way to save your company time and money. But there’s the human side too. It’s equally important, considering your people are your greatest assets. And who doesn’t want an engaged, high-performing workforce driving the company forward?
With the high cost of turnover and the competitive employment-scape, the time is now to focus on retaining your best talent. So, what’s the delay? Start implementing these strategies today to see a giant improvement in your employee retention rates and your bottom line.
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PeopleInsight by HireRoad makes building a data-driven, impactful strategy a breeze. In today’s ever-changing marketplace, can you afford not to invest in talent retention strategies fif you want to remain competitive?
Book a free demo when you’re ready for uplevelled talent retention in just 10 days.