7 ways to retain your top talent

In good and bad economic times, leading businesses know that to succeed, they need to make sure they are keeping hold of the very best people for their business. We asked Emma Browning; CEO and Founder of Meraki HR for her top tips on talent retention in a competitive market.

With the concept of a ‘job for life’ now being almost non-existent, and a tendency for employees to be less loyal when it comes to their career choices, you don’t just hold on to your top talent by accident. Without a robust approach to employee retention, you may not even realise that some of your key members of staff are already thinking about moving on in the very near future.

Here are seven practical and highly effective tactics for retaining your top talent. By implementing these key policies and suggestions, you can rest safe in the knowledge that you’re strengthening your business for the future.

1. Have a realistic recruitment process

A big reason why people decide to leave their role is because the job isn’t what they expected it to be. Give prospective employees a clear expectation of what they’ll be doing if they’re offered a role with you – including the good parts as well as the less desirable – be HONEST about the role!

When writing the job description, add as much detail as possible, and make sure that you fully understand what the role involves by speaking with current employees who are in that position. Consider including an ‘on the job’ activity as part of the selection process to give a clear idea of what the job involves.

Remember that the best candidates will have other options, and while you’re assessing abilities, they’re going to be considering why they should come and work for you. Make sure you run your recruitment and selection exercises in a way that demonstrates your integrity as an employer and values every candidate and their time.

2. Be flexible with working practices

Many employers have realised the benefits of offering flexible working and are reviewing their working practices as a result of the Pandemic. Could you offer a choice of start/finish times? Or spread shifts over a few days? Or offer job-sharing options? How about the option to work from home on a permanent basis?

Implementing flexible working practices isn’t about lowering the quality of the service that you offer to your clients – it’s about meeting business needs and giving your staff the freedom to decide how and when they carry out their tasks if that’s possible. Your competitors might already be doing this, and if you fail to get onboard, your retention rates are going to suffer.

3. Run staff surveys – and act on the results

There are many cost-effective survey platforms that can help – 15Five, Officevibe, Cultureamp, Reward Gateway and Tiny Pulse are just a few. But where most companies fall down, is not using the results to identify issues and create meaningful change.

So, for example, say you discover that 80% of your employees are thinking about leaving within the next year and the main reason for this is a lack of development opportunities. You could create a learning programme for progression into more senior roles, or design events to encourage staff to learn new skills and put them into practice, or introduce a mentoring scheme, develop and publish career paths, so that people know what their next move is By developing your staffs skills you get to keep your best staff, and give them the capability to perform at a higher level.

4. Consider your total reward package

Pay has always been a big topic in retention, and it’s true that many employees decide to move on to seek out a better pay packet at the end of each month. With rising costs, many businesses simply can’t afford to give their employees the pay rise they may be hoping for.

The cash you pay your workers is only one aspect of the total rewards package you can offer. You might consider some of the following, relatively low cost but attractive benefits:

  • Making pensions more attractive to your employees
  • Employee Assistance Programs
  • Wellbeing initiatives
  • More annual leave
  • Hybrid/flexible working practices
  • Career development opportunities (mentoring, coaching, internal programmes, external qualifications)
  • A discount scheme in conjunction with local businesses
  • Private medical care/Health Care Cash Plans
  • Recognition schemes

5. Give line managers the skills and confidence to manage and motivate their teams

When implementing strategies to keep acceptable attrition rates of between 10-15% annually , consider how you can encourage your line managers to really own their responsibility  to manage and motivate their teams. You may also need to upskill your managers so that they can become really effective at managing and motivating their own teams, with little intervention.

Once they have the right skills, you can measure how well they perform in this part of their role. Build your retention strategies into your line managers’ objectives or KPIs. Staff turnover is inevitable, but it is acceptable and recommended to assess how the manager plays their part in implementing your people policies.

6. Introduce stay interviews

A stay interview is a conversation with an employee to discover what they love about their role, what they would like to change and how they view you as an employer. A stay interview serves to uncover what might make a great employee move on from you.

Stay interviews enable you to create an employer brand that will draw in new talent and they are a useful part of your retention strategy. By identifying pain points before they become full-blown problems, you can improve your work environment to retain great employees. For stay interviews to be productive and yield honest feedback, employees need to trust the person having the meeting with them.

7. Hold exit interviews

Regardless of how good your people practices are, staff will leave from time to time. Collecting information about why your workers want to move on can be eye opening and can also help you to identify any key patterns or trends that you might be able to resolve. To improve your people practices and make your business an exemplary place to work, it’s important to take the time to gather this type of information and tailor your policies and procedures accordingly.

Be consistent by ensuring the same questions are asked by a qualified member of staff who understands the value of the information. Alternatively, it might be worth considering using a third party, who might gather more honest answers. This also removes concerns from leavers around the confidentiality of their responses.

Running a business, making sure your people are motivated and engaged and creating a culture that allows people to thrive is not easy. At Meraki HR, we understand how difficult it is and we work with our clients to ensure they can attract, develop and retain the best people who will help to deliver great business results.

Meraki HR is a small team of HR professionals and qualified coaches who share a passion for people coupled with significant experience of successfully delivering professional, commercial and practical HR, training and coaching solutions. If you’d like to see how we can work with you to manage all your people matters, then book a call today for a no-obligation chat.