It is no secret that in the competitive international job market, employee retention can determine whether your company succeeds or fails.
There is also a problem with people being retained. Around one third of people are expected to leave their job voluntarily in 2023. This alarming projection is based on a decade of rising year-on-year churn.
When employees leave, employers are left to absorb several costs. The cost of bad morale in the workplace can be high, from lost productivity to the cost of recruiting. $1 trillion dollars is a lot of money for U.S. businesses to spend every year.
As more Gen Z and Millennial workers enter the workforce, the way they relate to their jobs is changing. Generation Y is less likely to commit to their current job than previous generations and are more willing to change jobs for a better offer.
Do we have any way to prevent this global trend from continuing? Read on for seven insights from CEOs and HR Professionals on how to curb churn and retain employees.
Tip 1: Recognize employees
Becoming gratitude-focused trickles down to how each team member shows up each day, both at work and at home. By encouraging employees to congratulate each other on their successes, they will feel gratitude for each other, and this will lead to increased job satisfaction. Unlocking employees satisfaction safeguards against turnover.
They managed to reduce their employee turnover rate by leveraging the power of recognition, which includes both peer-to-peer recognition and managerial recognition.
And what does recognition-giving look like in action? ” “It doesn’t have to be big,” says Michael Doolin, MD, of Clover HR. You can show appreciation for your employees by doing something as simple as thanking them for completing a task on time, or acknowledging their effort on a particular task.
Tip 2: Invest in well-being
Investing in employee well-being is key to mitigating churn. In the current climate, it is especially important to prioritize wellness, where an ‘always on’ work culture poses an invisible threat to organizations.
As well-being is holistic, it must be tackled holistically. One-off gestures like giving a fruit basket or health-related initiatives are not enough to fix a heightened state of mental stress. So what else can employers do?
Tip 3: Provide training and development opportunities
What does a quality training program look like? The first step in the process is to identify individuals’ knowledge gaps and create learning material to fill those gaps. Employees want to be constantly learning and improving their skills.
Ongoing training needs to be delivered in order to satisfactorily meet employee learning and development needs on an ongoing basis. Avoid treating learning as a one-time event, since it is a lifelong journey. This will keep feelings of stagnancy at bay.
The feedback should be directed not only at individuals, but also at the processes and practices being used. A continuous learning program should be complemented by and reinforced with “ongoing feedback.” The feedback should be directed not only at individuals, but also at the processes and practices being used. You can keep crafting valuable, powerful personalized learning experiences for employees by using this method to continually identify knowledge gaps.
Tip 4: Seek feedback and check-in
It is important to give employees a voice. People who feel like their voices are being heard are more than four times as likely to do their best work.
Feedback can help improve an employee’s satisfaction, performance, and loyalty. It can also give you information about how to improve the employee experience. wellness initiatives to match discovered knowledge gaps.
Tip 5: Create a sense of community
Building a feeling of community is closely linked to greater retention rates. If you want to feel more connected to your company and work with passion, find a best friend at your workplace. According to a study, 51% of employees who reported having a best friend at work felt more connected to their company and worked with more passion than those who didn’t, who only made up 20%.
The majority of employees who had a best friend at work were more likely to stay with the company for at least another year, compared to those who didn’t have a best friend at work.
This is an example of how important it is for a community to make employees feel like they belong there. This sense of belonging makes employees more loyal. Team building activities are important in creating community. They don’t need to be done in person to foster tight-knit team dynamics.
Tip 6: Align people around a central vision
Your vision and mission statement are what give your company a purpose. Companies with a strong sense of purpose see 49% less employee turnover.
If you don’t know the purpose of your business or haven’t communicated it well to your employees, they won’t be motivated or feel a sense of meaning in their work.
A strong, clear vision and mission statement bonds employees to the company and to each other by uniting everyone around a shared goal. They are also an opportunity to show how your company is better than competing companies.
Tip 7: Reward hard work
You can give employees either tangible or intangible rewards to incentivize them or to express your gratitude for a job well done. Tangible rewards are things like money while intangible rewards are things like compliments.
The appropriate reward to give depends on the outcome you are looking to achieve. Short-term motivators like gift cards or referral bonuses ensure employees are loyal and incentivized up until they receive the monetary exchange.
Tip 8: Support Their Passions Outside Work
One under-recognized way to keep employees on board is to give them the flexibility and resources they need to pursue their out-of-work passions. Beyond simply providing employees with flexibility, leaders need to make sure that employees feel comfortable actually
using this flexibility.
Given longstanding ideas about the “ideal worker,” or the notion prevalent in the U.S. that a good employee is one who dedicates their time and energy solely to work, embracing non-work passions requires igniting a mindset shift, including explicit endorsement from leaders.
What are some ways you can keep employees who are passionate about their hobbies happy? Drawing on research on passion at work and examples of companies that help employees to embrace out-of-work passions, researchers recommend creating passion opportunities for your employees through the following steps.
Work with employees to create flexibility.
Why don’t employees pursue activities outside of work that would make their lives more meaningful? Many people find it difficult to balance their work with their passions. This is because they have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of things to do. To allow employees to pursue their interests outside of work, leaders need to work with them to create this time.
One way to allow employees the time to pursue their passions is to give them more control over their work hours and be clear that they should schedule their work hours around their passions. Passionate employees may need to commit to specific times, and regular attendance is necessary. Employees need to feel confident that their job performance will not be impacted negatively if they take time for themselves outside of work hours.
Lead by example.
In order for employees to feel comfortable taking advantage of the flexibility that leaders provide, leaders need to ensure that employees feel comfortable utilizing this flexibility. It can be challenging for employees to take their paid vacation days due to social pressure. Given longstanding ideas about the “ ideal worker,” or the notion prevalent in the U.S. that a good employee is one who dedicates their time and energy solely to work, embracing non-work passions requires igniting a mindset shift, including explicit endorsement from leaders.
Workers might be anxious that nonstandard work hours will elicit negative reactions from others, and may therefore be reluctant to use work policies that allow for flexible schedules. Research suggests that these employee fears are well-founded. Employees who use flexible work schedules are often stigmatized by co-workers. Some workers might be worried that if they spend time on their hobbies or interests outside of work, it will make them look like they don’t care about their job. Others might be worried that taking advantage of opportunities to do something related to their hobbies or interests during work hours will make them look bad.
However, the stigma against out-of-work passions is unfounded. The data does not support the claim that having multiple passions weakens an individual’s work performance. Studies have shown that people who have a second job, or “side hustle,” make better employees at their main job. This is because having a side hustle makes you feel more empowered and positive. Passions boost engagement in a similar way. Constantly working, especially on holidays and days off, has the opposite effect of what is intended by making people less motivated to work.
Leaders can help to end the stigma around people who are passionate about things that they are not currently working on. This can help normalize these passions and make them more socially acceptable. For example, you can share your hobbies and interests with your employees. I see passions as fuel that re-energizes me to do my best. I think it’s critical to tell employees that they can, and should, make time for the same.
Encourage employees to share their passions with each other.
In addition to sharing their own interests, leaders can help create a culture where employees feel passionate about their work. It is important for leaders to share their passion with employees as this often has a bigger impact on what employees feel is appropriate behavior, rather than what higher-ranking leaders do. If the leader of a team is the only one who takes the time to pursue their passions, it is unlikely that any employees will start to follow them.
Leaders can help create a more positive work environment by giving employees opportunities to share their interests with each other. For example, Jon holds weekly lab meetings for each team member to share what they’re passionate about outside of work, and to encourage people to pursue these non-work passions. This would be a good way for leaders to create channels on Slack or Microsoft Teams that are dedicated to outside passions so that group members can post about what they’re interested in and get feedback from others.
In addition to benefiting individual employees, creating opportunities for people to share their passions with one another may also strengthen social bonds among coworkers by making work more personal and enjoyable. Revealing personal interests to one another can help create a sense of closeness and positivity between people.
Leveraging opportunities for employees to be passionate about something could help companies with many remote workers to build social bonds among coworkers. No-office companies often try to build relationships between employees by offering perks like company-wide retreats.
Put your money where your mouth is.
An increasing number of companies are financially supporting passions outside of work, as it has been shown to improve work performance. The programs are worth the money because employees are more motivated to work.
Edelman employees can apply for financial assistance to support a cause they are passionate about, or they can request an “Edelman Escape.” This is a one-week break from work that comes with a $1,500 stipend to pursue a unique experience. The clothing company Betabrand has a Flyaway Program that pays for employees to travel to Inte FullContact, a software company, offers a practice called “Paid Vacation,” which includes a $7,500 stipend on top of paid vacation time that employees can use for whatever they want, with one caveat: They must disconnect and do something completely non-work-related. Hinge encourages its employees to go on dates by giving each employee $200 to spend on them.
Leaders could also offer stipends for learning, giving employees funds for self-development.
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