Employee Retention Programs - Improve Your Bottom Line

When the job market is hot, your company may be vulnerable to employee attrition.  When the market is down (like now) you may risk losing employees through employee disengagement and employee vulnerability.    

When an employee resigns, that can cost your company 1.5 -2 times of the vacated salary.   The hard and soft cost can include time and money spent on refilling the position, advertising fees, agency fees, employee development and training.   Other risks variables can include lower productivity, company morale and the impact this has on your customers.  

If your business is in the fortunate status to be hiring, minimizing employee attrition starts on day one.   There should be a formal onboarding program for new hires, which include orientation, training and a transition plan (or ramp up plan).  When orientation and training conclude, a transition plan ensues which will allow new hires to reach productivity as efficiently as possible.   

Here are a few items that can noticeably improve your employee retention efforts. 

Employee Communication

Considering the nature of the economy, if workers aren’t in danger of losing their position, they can still feel vulnerable.  Vulnerable employees make less productive employees, and if they continue to feel vulnerable, they’ll eventually depart.

Communicating with employees can accomplish more than meets the eye.   Keep your employees up to date with company news, key new hires, significant accomplishments and other news to keep your employees in the loop.  Informed employees can have a greater sense of ownership, a sense of ownership ushers a higher level of employee engagement and with higher engagement yields higher productivity….so on and so forth.

Benefits

Ensure you’re providing a good benefit and vacation plan.    

Awards

Recognition is another way to raise performance.  You can have awards for “Best Employee Award,” or “Best Turnaround,” or whatever highlights your company culture.  If you want to tie in a bonus to this award, that can further compel individuals to exceed expectations, but not necessary. 

On Going Training

Offer employees opportunities to further their respective skill sets through training.  You can offer paid training programs as well as tuition reimbursement for employees who’d like to further their education.