25 March 2024 - 3 min read
Retaining talent in 2024 is more complex than it ever was. Individuals are now aware that a third of their life is spent working and because of this, expect a lot more in return from their employers. If employees aren’t feeling fulfilled, satisfied and encouraged in their jobs, they’ll leave, which is putting added pressure on employers.
In this blog, we discuss how to retain talent in your organisation, through the good times and the not-so-great.
Employee retention is an employer’s ability to retain their staff over a certain period. It involves creating a stable, reliable workforce where employees feel happy and motivated via set strategies and practices, ultimately encouraging them to stay with the organisation for the long term.
Employee retention offers many advantages for businesses, including:
Cost savings: it’s statistically proven that companies will spend less money keeping their staff than they will hiring new employees. This comes down to the variable expenses that present alongside hiring someone new, including recruitment costs, onboarding, training and the inevitable dip in productivity.
Increased productivity: it takes time for new employees to settle in as they need to go through the onboarding process, acquire necessary skills, and (eventually) achieve optimal performance levels. Conversely, individuals who are already familiar with their roles are typically able to reach high levels of productivity more quickly, making current employees more valuable to the organisation.
Overall continuity: someone working at a company for a few years will already have a better understanding of the inner working of the company overall, have existing relationships with clients and customers and know their role better than an unnecessary new hire.
Established company culture: culture isn’t created over night and often takes years to build. Employees build culture through their actions and interactions and without a happy, committed and loyal workforce, a strong company culture won’t exist and morale will decrease considerably.
Retention strategies are customisable, remember that when creating yours. However, why not try:
One size fits all training, development and onboarding plans are no longer sufficient in today’s modern workplace, which makes sense as no two people are the same.
It’s time to include and ask your workforce how they would like to learn and how you as an employer can create said learning opportunities. Sparking these conversations can sometimes feel overwhelming, so why not start with both personal and group conversations regarding career goals, job aspirations, strengths and weaknesses.
Through this you should be able to pinpoint individual and collective areas for development, identifying how you will reach these goals and close gaps.
This could include:
Mentorship programmes: both in and out of the company.
Skill-building workshops: have an industry expert host a skills workshop, for instance, unique to a specific organisational department.
Sponsor attendance at an industry conference: there’s often free and paid industry conferences in most large cities, providing opportunity for learning, networking and collaboration.
Back in 2022, organisations said their staff could work from home a few days a week due to its success during the pandemic and since, few companies have made further changes. Stuck in their new ways, organisations are missing out on the impact that true flexibility can have on an organisation and its workforce.
A flexible workplace means:
Flexible hours
Everybody will see flexible hours differently and in some cases, it’s no longer recognised as simply starting earlier so that you finish earlier. New ways companies are implementing flexible hours include, taking extended lunch breaks and making time up elsewhere, avoiding rush hour when commuting and implementing a no meeting time slot between 12-2pm.
Hybrid and remote working
Allowing employees to spend time working both at home and in the office has been a highly successful initiative over the last 2 years. However, companies need to continue updating these models to ensure they are working for employees. Additionally, it’s important to remember that remote doesn’t just mean at home, it means any suitable place where work can be successfully carried out, e.g. a different country or a shared working space.
Flexitime
Like flexible hours, flexi time allows employees to choose when they start and end work, within a specific time slot and there’s often core hours to help guide productivity e.g. between 10-4pm. Flexi time also allows staff to work extra hours at certain times and then take those hours back, without using their annual leave.
4 day work week
What has been a hot topic in the workplace and the media, 4-day work weeks have proven to be just as productive as 5, but with increased work life balance, happier staff and overall improved wellbeing.
Beer Fridays, pizza parties and office pool tables are fun, but they aren’t what employees are looking for these days. Instead, employees want incentives and rewards that add to their working experience and reduce overall life stresses.
These days, we’re seeing global companies taking magnificent strides towards rewards and recognition, with their own dedicated reward and wellbeing departments and teams. However, as this is not plausible for all companies, a robust and well thought out recognition programme is just as effective (we’re looking at you, HR)!
Some popular rewards we’ve recently seen are:
Some more contemporary benefits include:
Negotiating salaries, staying competitive and adjusting to current cost of living can be tricky to navigate for organisations, however, there’s both laws and expectations that must be met to ensure everyone is paid fairly and correctly.
Ways to maintain a competitive salary include:
Understanding current market situations
Each industry and market salary will vary, and its vital employers know the ones specific to them. The conditions of each market and industry will vary also, in terms of demand and expectations. This knowledge should all be taken into consideration when analysing salaries.
Industry benchmarking
Let the experts do the work for you and research current salary reports, surveys and data written by recruitment specialists. Some of the most popular ones in the UK include:
Considering total compensation
Monetary doesn’t necessarily just mean salary and when ensuring yours is competitive, looking at the whole picture is beneficial. Are you providing your employees with any additional monetary compensation such as a bonus, recognition vouchers, commission or a company car?
Regular reviews and adjustments
Salaries and economic situations change quickly and in order to stay ahead of the curve, company salaries should be reviewed annually, research confirms.
The most important thing to remember when retaining talent is to never assume and to always ask. It’s easy to make excuses due to budget, misinterpret what your employees are looking for, or to assume that you know best (whether you’re a senior manager or part of the HR department).
That said, a retention strategy that includes comprehensive input from employees and that is unique to a business is vital, especially if organisations want to remain competitive, successful, and sought-after.
Improve your learning and development initiatives with a professional CIPD qualification with DPG today.
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