How to Avoid Losing Your Best Employees – Guest Post
[Note: I’m pleased to feature this guest post from Meredith Wood, Editor-in-Chief at Fundera. Specializing in financial advice for small business owners, Meredith is a current and past contributor to Yahoo!, Amex OPEN Forum, Fox Business, SCORE, AllBusiness and more.]
The job market is the hottest it has been in the past 50 years.
A steady job market means more opportunities for workers to always be looking to up their gigs. It also means companies may lose its top-performing employees who will take their talents elsewhere — possibly to competitors. Such turnover has a huge impact on business throughout the world as turnover can cost a company as much as 213% of an employee’s salary.
Retention strategies
Keeping employees happy is a great way to retain them. That’s why it’s important to stay on top of hiring trends and perks that companies are offering and see what you can realistically implement at your own business. Things like work-from-home days and flexible work hours are completely free for employers to offer, and sometimes a small loss in productivity like Friday hours is well worth it to retain top performers.
It’s not always in the company’s control when an employee resigns. Many factors can impact the decision such as relocation, family planning, entrepreneurial endeavors, and more. But in this competitive job market, companies can proactively reduce the likelihood of their best employees looking for other opportunities.
Here are the three ways you can minimize the chances of losing great talent:
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- Maintain a positive company culture: No matter how high the pay is, nothing is worth it if employees aren’t happy. The culture surrounding your office plays a major role in the happiness of your team, which also impacts how productive your workers are.
- Offer a better work-life balance: Computers and the internet have revolutionized the way we work and the way we communicate. Take advantage by allowing workers more flexibility in order to keep a healthy work-life balance.
- Value employees with development opportunities: Your team wants to know that the work they are doing means something. Automate what you can to give your workers more free time for higher level thinking projects. Gone are the days when companies don’t have time to offer additional work benefits like learning opportunities, conferences, and team-building exercises.
[I’ll share more from Meredith Wood next week in a special infographic.]
