12th May 2022 8 MIN READ •Talos Engage •Employee Engagement
Employee development and retention is a crucial part of workforce planning. Strong, engaged employees are the driving force behind the success of your business; without them, you’ll struggle to achieve your business goals.
If you’re looking to increase staff retention, then you’re in the right place. Here, we discuss the employee retention strategies you can use to keep your best talent around.
Table of Contents
What are employee expectations?
Employee expectations are the essential wants and needs of your workforce. This may relate to company benefits (such as healthcare packages) or cultural values (such as work-life balance).
To put it simply, these are what your employees expect to receive from you in return for their hard work. If you fail to meet your employees’ expectations, your employee retention rate could dwindle.
Why are employee expectations important?
Meeting employees’ wants and needs is one of the most important employee retention strategies you can adopt, helping you to build a passionate, creatively driven workforce. Here’s why employee expectations are so important for employee development and retention.
1. They directly impact retention
Employees are more likely to leave you for another employer if their expectations are missed. If they feel that their wants and needs would be better met elsewhere, they will likely start looking for alternative opportunities.
A reported 58% of employees wouldn’t work for a company that doesn’t share similar values as them, so it’s no surprise that businesses whose brand values align closely with their expectations have seen an improved employee retention rate.
Read more: What to do when your employees keep leaving
2. Meeting expectations drives productivity
Meeting employee expectations is key to promoting productivity within your workforce. Colleagues benefit from higher job satisfaction when your company culture meets their needs.
If your brand strategy falls short of employees’ expectations, they will likely lose the creative passion that drives their success. A lack of productivity could lead to a disconnect from work and possible staff turnover. It’s, therefore, important to maintain a company culture that truly resonates with your workforce to boost employee retention.
3. Falling short of expectations damages your employer brand
If you fail to meet employee expectations, you run the risk of damaging your employer’s brand reputation.
Your employer brand is what first attracts new talent to join your company and encourages staff retention with your current talent. If this becomes tarnished, you’ll find it more difficult to attract compatible candidates for your roles and retain stronger employees.
How do employees’ expectations affect retention?
Just as your business has certain standards for its employees, your workers hold you accountable for meeting their work-life expectations…
Your workplace culture is often the deciding factor in whether employees stick with your business or leave prematurely. If this doesn’t live up to their expectations, you’ll likely witness a higher rate of staff turnover – leading to frequent vacancies and impacted performance.
On the other hand, consistently meeting employees’ expectations will boost productivity, employee retention rates, and career satisfaction within your business. Understanding your employee expectations really is a critical factor in your employee retention strategies and your company’s long-term success!
What is employee retention?
Employee retention is the act of keeping your current employees at your business and encouraging them not to look for opportunities elsewhere.
Employee turnover is an inevitable part of business; whatever you do, workers will move on for one reason or another. However, when it comes to your top employees, staff retention efforts can and should be made to keep them on your team for as long as possible. These efforts are usually in the form of employee retention strategies.
Why employees are leaving your company
Before we get onto how to stop your people from leaving by implementing some employee development and retention strategies, we must first understand why people are leaving your business.
An employee may hand in their notice for a number of different reasons, from retirement and relocation to pursuing a total change in career. Here are just a few of the reasons why top employees may be leaving your company:
1. They want a pay rise
In the modern world, people go to work for much more than the pay packet. However, salary is still the leading reason why employees leave a business, with 45% of employees claiming it to be their main contributing factor.
If your employees feel their compensation is insufficient for their labour, they may wish to look for something that better suits their financial needs.
2. Development opportunities
We all have strong ambitions; when it comes to career progression, these can massively influence employee retention. If your employees feel as if they have hit the ‘glass ceiling’ in development within your business, they may start to look elsewhere for their next job opportunity.
3. Lack of praise/recognition
Recognition is key to maintaining the drive and retention of your workforce. If employees feel their efforts are not recognised by the wider business, they may feel less positive about staying with your company for the long run.
This is especially true for your top employees, who regularly go the extra mile in their work; without praise or recognition, it is likely that they will lose the very drive that makes them so invaluable.
Read more: 3 employee recognition ideas for a forward-thinking workplace
4. Your EVP doesn’t meet their needs
Your employee value proposition (EVP) is a huge player for employee retention strategies. Simply put, your EVP is the reason your employees choose to work for you. If this is not regularly reviewed to meet the changing needs of your workers, they are less likely to stick with your company for the long-run.
5. They seek a better work-life balance
A huge player in staff retention in recent years has been the accommodation of flexible working and the promotion of work-life balance. While it’s impossible for every company to offer all employees a flexible working initiative, the ones that can are certainly at an advantage in attracting workers who value this benefit.
If an employee feels overworked, their productivity will start to drop, and they may begin searching for a company/job role that better suits their needs.
How to improve staff retention
Retaining top talent is crucial for the success of any business; by keeping top employees on the side, you ensure strength and reliability for your team. Here are some employee retention strategies employers can use to keep their high-achieving employees:
1. Strengthen your EVP
Developing a strong employee value proposition (EVP) is essential for most employee retention strategies. By regularly reviewing & adapting your EVP, you ensure that your workplace benefits match the changing needs of your workforce.
With Talos Engage, you can analyse your EVP on a regular basis for any changes in your employees’ needs. The gamified survey app provides an engaging experience for your employees while supplying you with insightful statistics to optimise your engagement strategy.
2. Regular performance reviews
To meet both the financial and progression needs of your workers, employees should hold regular reviews of both salary and career opportunities. This allows your employees to express any issues they may have with their current role, as well as discussing the future of their career with your company. This enables you to act to meet the needs of your employee development and retention.
3. Encourage learning & development
Learning and development are quickly becoming one of the most important factors influencing employee retention within your workforce. By creating an environment where your people can upskill, develop and thrive in their roles will do wonders for employee development and retention.
Providing leading and development opportunities aren’t just great ways to boost employee retention; they’re also a powerful strategy for business success. Developing the talent already on your team to take on new challenges in their roles.
4. Keep track of employees’ changing expectations
Employee expectations are constantly changing, especially as your business grows. Keeping track of these changes are crucial in order to prevent any unnecessary turnover and improve staff retention.
As part of your employee retention strategy, survey your colleagues regularly to gain their feedback on your workforce strategy. Find out what drives them to succeed in their roles and what holds them back. This will help to maintain employee engagement within your teams, boost career satisfaction, and ultimately boost employee retention.
5. Align your EVP with competitors in your sector
The employment market is becoming increasingly competitive – not only is it getting harder to attract and recruit new talent, it’s also becoming a challenge to improve employee development and retention.
To improve your staff retention, do some research and find out what similar employers in your sector are offering their employees in return for their hard work and loyalty. Compare this with your own HR strategy; is there anything missing from your workplace benefits package?
Make sure your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) can compete effectively with similar employers. This is critical for attracting and retaining your industry’s top talent – don’t lose your best employees to a better offer!
6. Conduct regular employee engagement benchmarking
Employee engagement benchmarking is a great way to identify the strengths and potential weaknesses of your HR strategy – especially when it comes to preventing staff turnover.
This involves conducting regular engagement surveys in order to gauge the overall sentiment of your employees.
Engagement surveys are a great tool for highlighting potential wellbeing/productivity challenges within your teams and rectifying these before they lead to increased employee turnover.
How to calculate staff retention rate
Calculating staff retention is an essential process for HR teams and should always be part of your process before developing employee retention strategies.
Exactly how to calculate staff retention is a very straightforward process, simply follow this employee retention rate formula.
To calculate staff retention, divide the number of employees remaining after a set period by the number of original employees at the start of the period and multiply by 100 to find your employee retention rate.
What are stay interviews?
So, your employees have indicated they want to leave; what next? Well, one of the emerging last-ditch employee retention strategies is to perform a stay interview.
Stay interviews are an emerging trend in the HR space, focused on reviewing employees’ needs and expectations when it comes to their workplace. These usually take the form of semi-formal conversations carried out in line with quarterly/yearly employee reviews.
How can stay interviews boost employee retention?
Conducting ‘stay interviews’ is a great way to increase employee satisfaction and boost employee retention.
Stay interviews are a great tool for increasing staff retention and boosting both morale and productivity within your team. Here’s how stay interviews can help you secure your very best employees.
1. Understanding what motivates employees
Once you understand your employee’s expectations and motivators, you’ll know which parts of your workforce strategy matter most to their continued success. This enables you to make well-informed changes to your employee retention strategy, adapting your approach in line with employees’ expectations.
This reduces the risk of ‘friction’ caused by changes to your workplace strategy, ensuring any adjustments are backed by genuine employee data.
2. Identifying engagement issues early
By conducting regular reviews into employee satisfaction, you can identify areas for employee development and retention within your workplace strategy. For example, if employees raise concerns about your leadership/management strategy, you can work to improve this before it begins to impact staff retention.
3. Supporting learning and development opportunities
As we discussed above, learning and development have an enormous effect on long-term employee retention rates. By approaching this topic in stay interviews, you can support employees in achieving their long-term career objectives.
For example, you may find an increased demand within your sales team for management-level training and promotion opportunities. Delivering on these expectations will incentivise employees to stick with your business long-term – returning value for their hard work and loyalty.
