ENHANCING EMPLOYEE RETENTION : BEST PRACTICES FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

 

(CAAR, 2022)

Introduction

In current highly competitive business world having the competitive advantage is critical for any organization over its competitors. As per (Bentes, 2019) “your biggest competitor in the future will likely be any company, in any industry, that can attract and retain competent people to their workforce.” As any company which is able to attract competent people in their industry to the company and retain them will automatically give high advantage over its competitors as it already has the top competent people in the industry to handle their operation. Therefore, any company requires to understand the certain importance of retaining top talent plays a vital role of any company’s success. High turnover in a company disrupts the operation and cause huge cost for the recruitment process of replacements. Therefore, company’s need to implement proper strategies to reduce the turnover and improve its retention targeting a sustainable growth in the company.

What is Employee Retention?

In his journal article (BasuMallick, 2021) has defined employee retention as a phenomenon where employees choose to stay on with their current company and don’t actively seek other job prospects. He also has stated that the opposite of retention is turnover, where employees leave the company for a variety of reasons. However, according to (Herrity, 2023), there is a different view point that employee retention as an organization's ability to retain quality employees. (Gillis et al., 2024) states that Employee retention is the organizational goal of keeping productive and talented workers and reducing turnover by fostering a positive work atmosphere to promote engagement and showing appreciation to employees, providing competitive pay and benefits, and encouraging a healthy work-life balance as characteristics of retention.

 

        When refer to the above definitions given by the various authors over the years it’s evident that employee retention is the keeping employees within the company. To achieve such feet companies has to take actions involving creating positive work culture that promotes employee engagement, recognizing employee contributions, offering competitive pay and other fringe benefits and most importantly encouraging a healthy work life balance. Ultimate target of these efforts is aiming to retain talented workers by encouraging supportive work culture within the organization where employees decide to stay in the organization without actively looking for new opportunities.

(Partnership, 2023)

Best Practices for Improve Employee Retention

 1. Competitive Compensation and Benefits

(Sorn et al., 2023) stated in their journal article that Organizations should consider offering competitive salaries and rewards for outstanding employees as it can help attract and retain talented individuals, ultimately enhancing employee performance. To do that, Companies requires to conduct periodical research to ensure that the company pay packages are remain competitive in the market. When deciding the packages companies should consider other non monitory benefits also as it will strengthen the overall package for the employees.

 2.       Positive Work Environment

Good work environment always has huge impact on employee satisfaction and then the employee retention. Companies should promote a culture where appreciate the respect, inclusivity and proper open communication channels within the organization. And company should encourage the teamwork and recognize employee contributions while providing opportunities for the feedback and growth of the employees.

3.       Work-Life Balance

For the employee’s good work life balance is important for the wellbeing which is a one of the factors can affect to the retention. (Uddin, 2023) explains in his journal article that companies which promote a healthy work life balance by offering flexible work hours, remote work options, and adequate time off, tend to retain employees for a longer duration. He further states that a balanced lifestyle reduces stress and burnout, making employees more likely to stay in their jobs. Therefore, companies should encourage its employees to take breaks, use their entitled leave days and most importantly not involving with work outside of office hours. That will help for employees to manage their work life with the personal life. Not limiting to these mentioned actions companies can take a vast range of actions to promote employee work life balance.

4.       Recognize and Reward Performance

Recognizing employee performance and rewarding employees according to their performance is one of important factors for employee satisfaction. Not only that will increase the retention due to satisfaction of the employees it will improve the employee performance also as this will be a good motivation for employees to perform well. Company should implement a good rewards policy that accepts employees' accomplishments and their contributions. This can include both monitory and non monitory rewards.

5.       Strong Leadership

Good strong leadership always plays an important part in employee retention. Companies need to make sure that its managers are well trained to communicate well and deal with the employees in a positive way. Company leadership qualities such as empowering the workforce, empathy and supportiveness. Company should encourage its leadership to make a positive work culture.

6.       Staff Engagement Survey

Companies can periodically conduct staff engagement surveys to understand the employee concerns regarding their employments. This is a positive approach a any company can adopt to understand the concerns and address those before those escalate. This will show company commitment to improve employee satisfaction which will increase the retention.

Conclusion

When a company implement these best practices in the organization, they can create a positive work environment where employees feel recognized and engaged with increased satisfaction to stay long term with the company without trying to leave for another company. It will be cost effective also to the company while assisting sustainable growth with long term retentions.

References:

BasuMallick, C. (2021) What Is Employee Retention? Definition, Strategies, and Ideas, With Examples, spiceworks.com [Online] Available at: https://www.spiceworks.com/hr/engagement-retention/articles/what-is-employee-retention/ [Accesses on 10.04.2024]

 

Bentes, D. (2019) Why Employee Retention is Your Most Competitive Advantage in Today’s Job Market, medium.com [Online] Available at: https://medium.com/agileinsider/how-you-treat-hire-and-keep-people-will-be-your-most-competitive-advantage-in-the-21st-century-6b151196e803 [Accesses on 10.04.2024]

 

CAAR (2022) The A, R and E of Employee Retention, caar.org [Online] Available at:  https://caar.org/the-communicator/april-2022/1592-the-a-r-and-e-of-employee-retention [Accessed on 10.04.2024]

 

Gillis, A. S., Baker, P., Sutner, S. (2024) Employee Retention, techtarget.com [Online] Available at: https://www.techtarget.com/searchhrsoftware/definition/employee-retention [Accessed on 10.04.2024]

 

Herrity, J. (2023) What Is Employee Retention? Benefits, Causes and Strategies, indeed.com [Online] Available at: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/definition-of-employee-retention [Accessed on 10.04.2024]

 

Sorn, M. K., Fienena, A. R. L., Ali, Y., Rafay, M., Fu, G. (2023) The Effectiveness of Compensation in Maintaining Employee Retention, scirp.org [Online] Available at: https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=126223#:~:text=Compensation%20is%20one%20of%20the%20most%20important%20factors%20affecting%20employee,likely%20to%20leave%20their%20jobs. [Accessed on 10.04.2024]

 

Test Partnership (2023) What is Employee Retention? [Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zu6ACw4YHo [Accessed on 10.04.2024]

 

Uddin, I. (2023) Correlation between job Environment and Employee Retention, linkedin.com [Online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/correlation-between-job-environment-employee-retention-imtiaj-uddin-luk0f#:~:text=In%20summary%2C%20a%20positive%20and,with%20higher%20employee%20retention%20rates. [Accessed on 10.04.2024]