Good Employees: It’s Cheaper to Retain than to Gain

Finding an employee who works hard for your company, is loyal and fully understands your business, is difficult. When you lose an employee, you have to start again from scratch with someone new. It can be disheartening and worrying; will they fit in? Will they understand how YOUR business runs? Will they be there when you need them like the previous employee was?

What is more ideal is if you can retain, rather than gain a new employee. Some tips include:

1. If you think a member of staff is thinking about leaving, talk to them. Why do they feel like this? What can you do to improve their work experience?

2. Never brush it away. It can be easy to think nothing is wrong and to brush it under the carpet. You can’t do this as an employer; one or more employees could leave. This leaves you in the lurch and then you’ll have to try and hire new people to work for you. Address the issue head on.

3. When an employee hands in their notice, speak with them (calmly) about it. Ask what you could have done better. Was it you or others in their department? Depending on the reason for a resignation it may be possible to change their mind.

4. If an employee breaks their contract, get some employment law advice. Because employment contracts are legal documents, employees can’t just walk out. Seek legal advice about this.

5. If an employee does leave, then don’t beat yourself up over it for too long – you need to look to the future and see what can be done about it. Try and change things in the workplace to suit existing employees. Do they all need a team day off? Do they need better working conditions? Do they feel under-appreciated? Make sure you target any issues NOW. It may be useful to seek ">employment contracts advice just to ensure that there aren’t any unsavoury terms in your contract that could mean you’re losing staff, simple things like introducing flexi time options could make a dramatic improvement.

6. Having regular confidential progress meetings with your staff members allows you to keep track of their progress and development. If after regular meetings with a candidate it becomes obvious that their job is not satisfying them for one reason or another then try and nip the problem in the bud before it escalates. What could be included into the role to make it more challenging and fulfilling?

7. Rarely a employee may reach a point in their employment were they have excelled and achieved everything that is possible for their particular role, before they get bored and want to leave why not rotate them to a brand new role and section within the business, starting from scratch in a different role provides a whole new challenge. Rotating through different roles in the business also allows the employee to understand every corner of the business, knowledge that would benefit future leaders of the business, which should be enough to motivate an excellent employee to stay.

8. Have a clear career progression path set when a new employee starts, let staff know from the get go that job changes within the business are not only approved but also encouraged. Your staff retention rates will increase as soon as staff know that you’re a employer that is prepared to grow and develop around the needs of employees.

Running a business is difficult and getting the right staff can be a extremely difficult task to handle, if you find yourself short of ideas to help you retain your staff it may be worthwhile seeking advice from human resources outsourcing companies.

You need to ensure your staff feel valued in order to get the best out of them, including their loyalty. Loyalty is an important attribute to any employee and once you have an employee who is willing to be loyal, you should try and keep hold of them. The current market means that finding the right, qualified, experienced candidate might be difficult and expensive to achieve, so before you go quarrying for any more diamonds elsewhere take a good look in your back garden for any hidden gems.