Work Smarter: 5 Ways to Improve Employee Retention

The culture of “work” is changing. With more companies than ever before offering exceptional benefits and building experiential office cultures, having great benefits is becoming more of a requirement than a perk.

Employee loyalty is no longer tied to just having a good job – employees expect companies to help them build a great work-life balance, make the workplace fun, and provide benefits that go beyond your standard employee benefits package. And for the companies that don’t do these things? They face higher potential turnover rates and a decreased ability to attract top talent.

Implementing simple strategies to improve employee retention will help you keep high value employees with your company, and support lower turnover costs. A 2018 study published in The International Journal of Advances in Management and Economics found that the factors that most influence employee retention are career development, financial rewards, recognition, job characteristics, and work-life balance. Below are five strategies that can be implemented to improve these work-related retention factors.

Flexible Scheduling
We hear a lot about flexible schedules, but less about how to make them work at your business. Flexible scheduling can include small perks, like summer hours or occasional work from home options, or a more comprehensive offering, like allowing employees to set their own schedules, so that they can work when they’re most productive instead of being confined to the typical 9-to-5. New technology has made this a possibility for many companies, and employees highly value the ability to make work work within their life.

The best way to make flexible and work-from-home scheduling a functional offering is to be clear about your expectations, along with any rules or procedures around how your flex scheduling works to ensure your team is on the same page.

Professional Development
Providing your employees with specialized training, and professional development opportunities allows you to have more qualified employees, and makes your staff feel valued. Investing in your people will create a symbiotic relationship. From industry-specific options to soft skills training (a body language training, for example), you can boost attendance by building a creative offering throughout the year.

To help your staff understand all of the opportunities you provide and see the value in the training, plan your professional development opportunities six to twelve months in advance. That will give you enough time to communicate and market your offering so that it’s visible and appreciated amongst your people.

Go Beyond Basic Health Insurance
When coming up with a benefits package, go beyond the basic health and dental insurance options and PTO offerings. Consider gym memberships, childcare support, massages, and mental health options. Even adding expanded telehealth coverage for your employees can make an impact. These types of benefits show that the company cares about the well being of their employees and makes employees feel appreciated, while helping them better care for themselves and their families.

Social Events
One way to maintain a positive company culture is to host social events. This can be anything from a team or vendor happy hour to company-wide potlucks to off-site celebrations. This allows employees to bond, facilitates good team communication, and instills a bit of fun and excitement into the work atmosphere – all of which builds stronger employee loyalty and boosts retention rates.
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Make Employee Retention a Priority
Great employees are the cornerstone of great companies. Keeping your employees happy, engaged, and feeling appreciated will help you build a stronger relationship with your staff, deepen the employee experience and support stronger retention rates.  If you want to maintain your fantastic employees give some of these retention strategies a shot.