Top Employee Retention Strategies for 2024 – Part One

Over the last 18 months, millions of workers from many industries worldwide have decided to quit their jobs. Numerous theories have been put out to explain the mass departure, but studies suggest that a host of factors, including low pay, little opportunities for professional growth, unsatisfactory work-life balance, overall dissatisfaction with management or the organization, might be to blame.

The COVID-19 epidemic has sparked the so-called Great Resignation, which has made jobs a worker’s market. TikTok users have come up with terms like “act your wage” and “quiet quitting” as workers get together to support one another when they don’t feel valued or appreciated enough at work.

Employers are being forced to reevaluate what makes their organization desirable to work for as workers make decisions based on what’s best for them. It’s time to think about employee retention methods if you believe your company might lose top talent or if you have already started to lose your best employees to the Great Resignation. These are 15 practical methods that can increase job happiness among your staff and help you retain the top candidates.

Offering Competitive Hourly Wages and Base Salaries

Making sure that your workers are compensated for their sacrifices and hard work should come first to instill a sense of value in their job. Paying workers fairly is much more crucial than everything else on this list; if you don’t give them what their time is worth, you won’t be able to keep them in an efficient manner.

Employees should get fair compensation for their time and labour, as well as enough money to cover their living expenses, have their pay frequently adjusted to account for inflation, and receive more money as their level of experience increases in the workplace. Additionally, employees should get greater compensation for each rise in responsibility.

Allow Your Staff to Work From Home

Upwork’s “Future of Workforce Pulse Report” projects that 36.2 million Americans will work remotely by 2025, a roughly 90% increase from the pre-COVID-19 era. It has been shown that working remotely not only makes it easier to stop the transmission of illness but also increases employee happiness and productivity. In many different professions, working fully (or even partly) from home is now feasible thanks to current technology.

Although more study is required to fully understand the long-term impacts of remote work, Upwork’s analysis highlights certain benefits of working from home, such as less unnecessary meetings, more schedule flexibility, the elimination of commutes, less distractions, and improved autonomy. Your staff will be happier and more productive if they are not forced to spend time stuck in traffic, worrying about childcare, or losing time to long meetings or schedule conflicts.

Offer Adaptable Scheduling and Shorter Workdays

Studies from the Society for Human Resource Management demonstrate that companies that provide more flexible work alternatives have far higher employee retention rates in addition to providing remote work. Prior to the epidemic making working from home the standard, over two-thirds of employees reported being more productive while working from home because they had less interruptions, distractions, and commutes. This was according to a 2019 survey. Offering your staff flexible hours helps them to identify the times they will be most productive and efficient to concentrate attention on the task, since creativity cannot constantly be switched on like a tap.

Reducing the number of hours on a workday or work week may boost productivity and promote greater employee retention in addition to flexible scheduling. According to a 2014 Stanford University research, productivity starts to sharply fall once a worker clocks in more than 50 hours a week. Although it’s common to assume that workaholics who come early and go late are more committed and productive, this may not always be the case if a significant portion of their output during those hours is lost to fatigue or burnout.

Motivate and Advance a Work-Life Harmony

Encouraging and promoting a healthy work-life balance is number four on our list of essential retention tactics for companies. This goes double for you: it benefits you and your staff. Especially since the pandemic radically impacted how employees view work, more and more people mention work-life balance as the reason they contemplate new employment or the reason they have denied possibilities. Work-life balance may be achieved in a few ways, including the previously stated shorter workdays, flexible scheduling, and remote work, as well as more straightforward initiatives like advising staff members not to check their email or take calls about work until they are in the office or on the job. Keeping a positive working relationship with workers requires respecting their time off.

Acknowledge and Thank Your Staff for Their Contributions

Long-term employee retention is far simpler when workers believe their employers are suitably recognizing and rewarding them. Research also indicates that these workers will put in more effort and produce more. Regretfully, more than 80% of American workers said they don’t feel compensated or acknowledged. Companies who prioritize recognizing their staff many times a month are 41% more likely to see higher employee retention and 34% more likely to see greater employee engagement, according to a survey by the Brandon Hall Group.

There are many methods to acknowledge and thank your staff, but it’s crucial to make sure you give both financial compensation and public acknowledgment equal priority. Not only does receiving public recognition for our efforts feel good, but it also lets others know that they are valued. One of the most crucial and effective forms of employee incentives is money, which may come in the form of cash, gift cards, or even additional benefits like paid time off. Think considering asking open-ended questions to staff members about their desired incentives as well.

Make sure you are not just recognizing your staff for outcomes, but also for efforts. Occasionally, goals are not realized, transactions are not completed, or initiatives may not turn out to be as successful as anticipated. Even though this may be disappointing, let your staff members know that their efforts are valued even if the objective was not achieved. This might assist them when they would otherwise feel hopeless or discouraged and motivate your staff to strive harder the following time.