Employee attraction and retention is essential for a business to run efficiently. If you have to replace your employees often, you’ll need to train new ones just as often, and there won’t be any stability within your workforce. Also, getting the right employees to work at your company is important too or you’ll have staff who aren’t invested in your company or don’t have the right skills to do the work they should.
Effective employee attraction and retention are two ways you can ensure you’re hiring the right people, and keeping them happy enough so they don’t leave after a few weeks or months. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how you can get employee attraction and retention right and guide your business in the direction of great growth. When you get this right, a workers comp attorney won’t be something you’ll have to think of in the near future, if ever. Let’s get straight to it, shall we?
1. Promote From Within
First things first, you should consider looking at your current staff before trying to fill vacancies. Good employee attraction and retention require clever thinking, and why should you hire new people if you’ve got a job role that needs to be filled if you could simply promote someone you already trust? Looking internally before searching for new people from the outside is a fine way to not only keep your current staff happy but also ensure you hire someone who is already familiar with your company and current staff members. Also, by promoting your current employees, you’ll motivate and encourage them to improve their skills to benefit your company. Your employees will be more likely to work hard if they know they could be rewarded with promotions.
2. Improve the Onboarding Process
The onboarding process of a company is very important to new hires. They’ll use this experience to determine how happy they’ll be with the company and this will have a lasting impact on their performance. That’s why you should ensure that the onboarding process at your company is a smooth, pleasant experience that won’t be uncomfortable or awkward. Make sure your process will fill your new hires with enthusiasm and a desire to become part of the ‘family’. It’s a good idea to mention all job expectations, requirements, and benefits again during the onboarding experience, even if they were discussed at length during the application process. Mention things like salary, work hours, retirement planning, and so on that will inspire the new hires to dedicate themselves to your company.
3. Recognize and Reward Hard Work
One of the secrets to true employee attraction and retention is quite simple—rewards! As the ‘boss’, it’s your duty to not only recognize your employees’ hard work, but you also need to reward that hard work. Would you put in everything when it comes to your work if you knew there wouldn’t be any reward? Of course not, so don’t expect that from your employees. Recognition is extremely important if you want to keep your staff happy, so have ways of acknowledging their dedication and rewarding their efforts in place. Your recognition can be something as small as a personal thank-you email, or something more substantial, like a small bonus. Never let your employees feel undervalued or underappreciated and you won’t have to worry as much about employee attraction and retention.
4. Invest in Employee Training Programs
If you want your employees to have all the skills they need to do good work, you need to be prepared to provide them with the right tools. It can feel costly to train your employees, but when you look at how that will improve their performance, you’ll realize that it’s well worth your money, and their time. Most employees (at least the ones worth investing in) see training as a good way for them to contribute to your company and will be happy to complete any programs you have planned for them. Employees feel more appreciated if they work for a company they know supports and encourages their development. Skilled employees are often difficult to find, but you can ensure that your current employees become perfect fits for their respective roles.
5. Offer Flexible Work Arrangements
The pandemic has changed how people want to work, and they want flexible work arrangements like the ability to work from home. If you take employee attraction and retention seriously, you’ll keep that in mind. Allowing your employees to choose if they want to work in your office or studio, their own home, or any situation in-between, will make them more likely to feel motivated. Flexible work arrangements can even lead to improved performance, despite some company owners and managers thinking working from home will make their employees lazy. Make sure you’ve got your systems and schedules arranged in such a way that your staff can choose how they work.
6. Trust Your Employees
This is a very important point of discussion when it comes to good employee attraction and retention. It can be difficult for business owners to trust their employees, but if you want workers to stick around, you can’t act like there’s no trust between you. Trust between employees and employers is good for the company as well as the workers’ well-being. Allow your employees to have the choice of doing what they feel is right when it comes to dealing with customers and clients. This will boost their morale, make them feel valued, and show that you trust their judgment. Employees who feel that their judgment is trusted are less likely to find different jobs.
7. Monitor Turnover Risks
Good employee attraction and retention isn’t a once-off thing, it’s something you have to constantly work on. You have to keep an eye on all the needs and wants of your employees and make sure you’re not slacking off and letting your employees down. Monitor how your employees feel about their job roles, how working for you is affecting their lives, and whether or not they’re satisfied. Turnover risks can be many different things, from a bad working environment, demotivating leaders to low salaries and lack of recognition. Make sure you know what the risks are and that you’re not leaving your employees wanting more. If you find any issues, address them firmly and swiftly and show your employees that they really do matter to you.
8. Simplify Work Processes
Making your employees’ work easier will go a long way toward making sure they don’t want a different job. Job satisfaction has a lot of focus on accomplished goals and feeling like you’ve made a difference, and your employees don’t have to struggle through difficult situations, they’ll be more likely to achieve their goals. Difficult situations, in this case, refer to red tape stopping employees from quickly finishing tasks, using copiers that malfunction, and outdated systems making it impossible to work efficiently. Take these things out of the equation and you’ll have workers who perform a lot better and achieve more goals. It can take a while to truly simplify work processes and find systems that work perfectly for your teams, and when you do, their morale and dedication will be greatly improved.
9. Prioritise Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The days when companies discriminated when it came to who they hired are long over, and you should make sure you’re not guilty of any kind of exclusion or discrimination. People appreciate workplaces where diversity, inclusion, and equity are prioritized, so if you want to attract the right workers and keep them, you’ll have to focus on those three elements. Remember that committing to diversity, equity, and inclusion will also positively impact your company’s general reputation. Social responsibility is an important matter and you can only benefit from taking it seriously.
10. Establish Mentor Programs
The power of buddy or mentor programs should not be underestimated, especially when it comes to the benefits it offers companies. Hiring transformation coaches to talk to your workers and inspire them while guiding them on their career paths can greatly improve performance and employee retention. Young employees who are assisted by senior leaders and employees will learn more about their job roles and how to do their work efficiently, and they’ll be more dedicated to their work. Also, experts who teach your employees about changing technology can make them better at their work and motivate them to keep learning as times change. New hires at your company can always benefit from mentor programs offered by experienced workers, who will, in turn, feel valued and appreciated.
11. Offer Competitive Salaries and Benefits
Do you want to nail employee attraction and retention? Then offer potential hires amazing salaries and benefits, and make sure your current employees are satisfied with their salaries and benefits as well. In addition to flexible work situations, people want to be paid decent salaries. Although some may call the new and upcoming workforce spoiled because they demand more benefits and better salaries, it’s only natural that employees would want to be compensated for their hard work and dedication. Make sure you’re paying really well and offering competitive benefits that will attract the employees you want and keep them happy. Doing so will also prevent your workers from looking for other jobs when they could be focused on becoming better in their current roles.
12. Promote Communication and Collaboration
One of the best ways to cultivate a happy working environment is by encouraging good communication and collaboration. If you want to give your workers a positive experience, you should offer them open communication so trust can be built between junior and senior members. Improving engagement between teams can also lead to higher productivity and overall better individual performance. You should use tools like Zoom, Trello, and Slack to make inter-company communication and collaboration easy. Don’t force your employees to take part, but gently encourage them and you’ll get better results. You should also consider team-building activities and initiatives to motivate teams and individuals to work together more efficiently.
13. Pay Attention to Feedback
All the work you put into attracting the employees you want and keeping them satisfied will be wasted if you’re not open to feedback from them. You won’t be able to identify all turnover risks and discomforts your employees experience if you tackle this matter on your own. Don’t hesitate to ask your workers to share how they feel and how their working environment is affecting them, so you can improve things for them. Let them give you feedback about everything—whether it’s about something small like interior lighting causing eye strain, or something big like oppressive managers causing a toxic work environment. Allow your employees to discuss any issues they have. Of course, you need to pay attention to the feedback and actually respond accordingly. Make the changes your employees need.
14. Care About Your Employees
The final point of discussion here is actually caring about every one of your employees. You need to make sure their working environment is a good one, so hire cleaning services to keep everything neatly sorted and tidy. Also, hire reliable HVAC services to take good care of your heating and cooling systems so your employees are never uncomfortable when it comes to the weather conditions where they work. Sorting out the working environment will keep your employees satisfied and ensure lower employee retention. Another way to ensure employee retention is by taking your workers’ health seriously. You should train team managers to respond to any ailments, from back pain to chronic health problems and anything in-between. Have Medicare insurance assistance ready to handle any health problems that pop up and your employees will be happy to work for you.
Now that you know more about effective and efficient employee attraction and retention, you don’t have to worry so much about getting a workers comp attorney to help you take care of employee issues. Instead, you can attract the right people and keep them so happy that they won’t want to work anywhere else. The next step is focusing on your clients or customers since you’ll have your employees all sorted out!