How do I Keep my Employees? (Employee Retention Strategies)

Now that we have found your ideal candidates and converted them into employees, it is imperative that you keep them.

You have invested time, energy and money into getting this person through your funnel, and the worst thing that can happen is that they get a look under the hood at your business and their future with you and don’t like what they see.

How do I create a retention system?

The key word here is SYSTEM.

Having a system means that it is documented, repeatable and measurable.

Systematizing allows you to set key performance indicators (KPI’s) for your business.

For retention systems, here are some things to consider:

Make sure you create an amazing onboarding experience

Many employers are so eager to get new hires productive and profitable as quickly as possible, they cut corners in this area.

This is your new hire’s first impression of your business; how can you make them delighted rather than just satisfied that they made this decision?

How can you dazzle them and endear them to your organization?

- They show up their first day and their desk is already set up for them and covered with critical non essentials

- Have a monthly welcoming party for new employees

Are you giving them everything they need to succeed and assimilate into your company culture? 

-  Assign them a mentor

- Designate a “head of company culture” role

- Make sure that there are plenty of videos and examples to help them

Do they know who to go to when they have questions or concerns?

- Have a list of FAQ’s and “Who to speak to if…”

Be proactive with your growth and development tracks

Be careful leaving someone in a role because “that’s what the company needs from you right now”.

We spoke about the importance of growth and development tracks in our last post, so hopefully you have had this conversation with your employee while you were courting them.

Part of making your retention system is having goals and skill development for your employees.

Having clear benchmarks around competency and productivity allow you to gauge how the person is performing. This will serve as a way to measure their performance and will let you know when it is time for that person to start training to move to their next position.

This can be difficult because as someone becomes proficient in their role, they become more productive as employee and the temptation will be to not want to “distract” them with additional responsibilities.

However, once someone is fully in their comfort zone, work can become monotonous as that person is not being challenged anymore.

This is where, especially for your high achievers, they will start to look elsewhere if you are not giving them the opportunity to grow.

Continue growing your employees and they will continue to grow your business.

Create a culture of feedback

The best way for you to gauge how your retention system performing is to continuously get feedback from your employees.

Conduct “Stay Interviews”

Most companies invest the time to do exit interviews when they lose people, but having a practice of regularly checking in with your employees will help you to make adjustments before those employees exit.

This can start with your tenured employees.

Ask them:

- Why have you stayed with us all these years?

- What at the best parts about working here?

- What can we improve?

- What would it take from us for you to stay for another 5-10 years?

- What reasons would you leave?

If this is a new practice then it may take time to really get by in and honest participation from your employees.

Make it part of your SYSTEM, from on-boarding to regular check-ins.

You will start to engrain a culture of transparency, and this is where you can really start to fine-tune your retention system and keep your high performers happy and loyal to your company.

HomeFUN

- Begin to outline your system

- Create and execute your Growth and Development Plan

- Conduct Stay Interviews with tenured and new employees

o Create a script so that you make sure that the most important questions are asked each time