Top Five Tips For Retaining Employees During The Great Resignation
HR and business leaders who have spent the last two years guiding their teams through the challenges of the pandemic now have another great task at hand. They have to focus on retaining employees and rebuilding their workforce. It’s a complex call to action as employees have been walking out the door during the Great Resignation.
At Allsup Employment Services (AES), we help people with disabilities return to the workforce through Social Security’s Ticket to Work program by assisting them with navigating the employment process as an authorized Employment Network. Our case managers help individuals who frequently had to leave a job due to medical issues and want to go back to their previous employers or are choosing to find new employment.
We are seeing our clients presented with more than one compelling offer at a time. It’s estimated that there are two jobs now available for every employee. In some cases we’ve seen clients leave one job on Friday and begin with a new employer on Monday. So what can employers do to hire the best new employees and retain the ones they have in this uber-competitive environment?
Here are the AES top retention tips to keep valued employees:
1) Create connection through engagement.
Successful organizations have employees who feel connected to the company, where employees feel valued, appreciated and heard. Organizations can accomplish this through engagement, in both formal and informal activities. Managers can engage with their employees on a regular basis and actively listen. To take it a step further, employers can issue a quarterly survey of employees to ask their opinion about what is most important to them about their day-to-day work and job satisfaction. Regularly evaluating and discussing benefits options with employees can also bring value in the engagement process. The survey results should be made available on the company intranet and, whenever possible, employee suggestions should be implemented. With the rollout of new recommendations and offerings, management should make it clear that the changes are a direct result of hearing employees’ voices.
2) Implement remote/hybrid schedules.
The pandemic has made working from home non-negotiable. Recent research indicates that 97.6% of employees want to work from home for the rest of their careers. In this new era of work, employees expect to either work completely from home or have some type of hybrid schedule where their time in the office is reduced. Thirty-two percent of people surveyed chose having a flexible schedule as their top benefit, followed closely by 25% who wanted the flexibility to work from any location. So, whenever possible, evaluate your current roles to see if employees can work at least some of the time at home and implement this policy. Employers who don’t embrace remote work are likely to be left behind.
3) Go with a growth mindset.
Career progression is critically important to retaining employees. They want to see a clear path from their current role to other positions in the organization. This should be a top- down movement where leadership creates opportunities for employees at all levels. It can be achieved by taking note of successful workers who have been promoted to positions in other departments and mapping out their movements. Alternatively, management and HR leaders can partner to examine transferable skills from one department to another and carve out new paths. These tracks should be available on the company intranet. They can be discussed at yearly evaluations so employees' interests are top of mind. They can then enroll in any needed training to get them where they’d like to be.
4) Beef up benefits offerings.
After laboring through the pandemic, employees want more resources for health and wellness. These can be varied. You can create “lunch and learns” on related topics like relaxation skills, meditation, yoga and healthy eating. An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that provides employee counseling has been a sought-after resource since the public health emergency. If you have existing EAPs or other wellness programs, you can offer education on these. It’s not only about supporting your employees and their families, but letting them know what they can access.
5) Cultivate company culture.
Your organization’s culture is vital to retaining valued employees – and attracting new ones. Glassdoor reports that more than three-quarters (77 percent) of job seekers consider a company’s culture before applying, while 79% consider a company’s mission and purpose. A robust organizational culture can deepen existing employee relationships, create better customer service, and attract top-notch talent. Consider creating a video that highlights your company’s culture. Existing employees can talk about what drew them to the company and what keeps them there.
Employees know what they want from their work and the culture of the organization that employs them. Successful employers know it pays to listen to them and implement their suggestions.
At AES we know finding dependable, hard-working employees can be difficult. We work with an untapped pool of experienced, resilient workers – people with disabilities. These former workers can really give your organization a competitive edge. Important next steps include enhancing the existing strengths of your organization, and demonstrating the appeal for your employees to grow personally and professionally in sync with your own company’s growth. That poses a win-win for everyone’s interests.
