10 Actionable Employee-Retention Strategies for 2022 Here's how you can hang on to your most valuable team members and strengthen your company in the process.
By Saurabh Kumar Edited by Ryan Droste
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Employees add a considerable amount of value to your business processes and help you attain your organizational goals. While it is crucial to hire fresh talent regularly, it is equally important to retain the valuable talent you already possess.
As we head into 2022, the competition in all major industries is getting increasingly intense. Businesses across the board are recovering from the Covid-19 crisis, and they are willing to hire skilled and dedicated employees to get them back on track. This implies that your employees have more options apart from working for your organization. If you cannot keep your employees engaged, they are likely to switch to another company that provides them with more benefits.
Why is employee retention important?
Cost-effective management
If you lose your employees, you will need to spend a fortune on hiring their replacements. This will add to the burden on your budget as you spend on advertising, screening, interviewing and onboarding new employees. On the contrary, managing existing employees is a far more cost-effective activity.
High employee engagement
When you lose your employees and make new hires, the remaining employees will shoulder greater responsibilities and take up heavier workloads. This may result in their morale and motivation taking a hit. Retaining your valuable employees allows you to maintain an ideal level of engagement within your organization.
More experienced employees
Employee retention provides you with many loyal employees with a considerable amount of experience working with your organization. Over time, employees tend to learn the culture, ethics and values of an organization. Moreover, they tend to get better and find an ideal rhythm of work with the years they spend working in an organization. This experience helps you build a team of skilled and capable employees, adding to the overall productivity of your organization.
Better customer relations
If your employees have a customer-facing job, retaining them will result in better relations with your customers. Over time, customers tend to bond with the employees as they are the single-point contacts between them and the organization that they are engaging with. Thus, hiring new employees will result in taking time for new employees to form healthy relationships with your customer base.
Better corporate culture
The corporate culture is formed out of the company's preferences, perceptions and behaviors. This plays a vital role in hiring and retaining valuable employees within an organization. Employee retention allows you to build a more wholesome company culture, ultimately improving the brand value of your business. Moreover, a better company culture allows you to attract skilled and dedicated employees to work in your organization.
Related: Why Employee Retention Is More Important Than Ever Before
Actionable employee retention strategies to implement in 2022
Before you venture into 2022, it is crucial to ensure a team of loyal, dedicated and engaged employees to work with. Here are some of the most effective employee retention strategies that you should implement in 2022.
Providing personalized employee support
One of the most effective ways to leverage employee retention is by providing personalized support to your employees. The needs of employees across the board have significantly changed. They can no longer work effectively with generic support across multiple platforms. When you understand the context of issues faced by all your employees and tailor support based on their requirements, their engagement and productivity increase.
It is advisable to switch from the traditional employee-service desks to their modern counterparts. Modern service desks are equipped with AI and machine-learning technologies to provide personalized assistance to your employees. These platforms help you centralize the support provided to all your employees, avoiding any scope for confusion or chaos.
The AI-based service desks make use of conversational AI, making your employees interact with AI chatbots. This helps you reduce dependence on support agents for providing primary support to your employees. Based on the issues faced by your employees, these chatbots scan your knowledge base and return with personalized solutions to their issues.
Related: Improve Employee Retention By Taking a People-First Approach
Effective employee onboarding
The first few weeks of an employee's time with an organization are crucial for they and the management. If you fail to onboard your employees effectively, they would not be comfortable with the new work environment, increasing their chances of switching companies. If you are willing to retain your employees, it is always important to focus on effective onboarding.
This is especially the case when it comes to remote employees. HR managers need to tackle several challenges to onboard the employees successfully. The lack of physical interactions often makes it difficult for the managers to track the onboarding processes.
In such cases, it is advisable to automate and streamline the onboarding processes with the help of a modern HR help desk. You can send personalized emails to the new employees through these service desks, providing them with all the required resources.
When an employee joins your organization, you can provide them with a personalized welcome letter, contact details of their peers, details about their roles and responsibilities, and other relevant information that facilitates smooth and effective onboarding. If you successfully make your new employees feel comfortable during their first few weeks, they will likely stick around for a more extended period.
Setting up mentorship programs
New employees are likely to have queries, doubtsand confusion regarding their roles and routine tasks. If these issues are ignored, you stand a chance of losing your employees.
Effective mentorship programs allow you to pair your employees with dedicated mentors to guide them and act as a sounding board during their initial days. When they have someone to listen to their problems and provide them with seamless assistance, employees work better during their first few weeks in a new organization. This helps you provide a conducive work environment for your employees, thereby improving employee retention.
Paying competitive compensation
The remuneration you pay to your employees plays a vital role in the morale and motivation of your employees. If your employees feel that they are not paid enough for their efforts, they tend to lose interest in their work, leading to reduced engagement and productivity. Over time, they will prefer switching to a new organization that provides them with better compensation.
It is essential to pay competitive compensation to your employees based on the efforts they put in and their role in your organization. Make sure you prove them with a raise if they have been associated with you for a more extended period. This makes them feel more connected to the organization as their efforts are recognized, allowing you to retain them effectively.
Having flexible schedules
Employees are no longer willing to work following the conventional time clock approach. Employees and employers in all major industries are more comfortable with flexible work schedules. This provides greater comfort and facilitates a free flow of thoughts and ideas. As long as your work is not affected, it is always advisable to have flexible work schedules to provide an ideal working environment.
Since the Covid-19 crisis began, more and more employees are volunteering to work from home. Now that offices have started opening up, many employees are still willing to work remotely as it helps them balance their personal and professional lives effectively.
In such cases, it is advisable to have a hybrid workplace where employees have a choice to work remotely and on-premise.
Focusing on mental health
The pandemic has made it vital for an organization to look after the mental well-being of its employees. Professionals across the board have gone through tough times and have faced professional and personal losses over the last two years.
Make sure you focus on the mental health of your employees, especially those working remotely. Remote employees often tend to work beyond the dedicated work hours, leading to exhaustion. Encourage your employees to avoid taking work-related calls beyond work hours. Also, keep checking how your employees are feeling and what they are going through by having friendly conversations with them. When your employees realize that their managers have got their backs, it makes them feel as if they are a part of a big family.
