Employee retention, a few years earlier, was relatively unfamiliar amongst the organizations. However, today, for any company, it has become as important as the number of sales made and the subsequent revenue earned. Thus, companies are weighing it equally as important as the other business aspects.
Considering the importance of retaining the employees, the workforce around the world is leveraging it to their advantage. Thus, they are bargaining for better salaries, enhanced benefits, suitable work conditions, etc. And to the surprise of many, employers are accepting what their employees demand, only to have them retained.
Nevertheless, why is it so important for the businesses to retain their employees, competing in the cut-throat competition, that they are taking all the measures to become the best in this aspect in particular?
What is employee retention?
To begin with, let’s consider the definition of employee retention as defined by the Oracle Netsuite:
“Employee retention is defined as an organization’s ability to prevent employee turnover, or the number of people who leave their job in a certain period, either voluntarily or involuntarily.”
To make things further clear, we also look into the definition of employee turnover:
“Employee turnover refers to the total number of workers who leave a company over a certain time period. It includes those who exit voluntarily as well as employees who are fired or laid off—that is, involuntary turnover.”
The definition of employee turnover implies that it is an event when employees quit a job or are made to leave. On the other hand, the retention of employees could be understood as to how efficient a company is in preventing its employee from making a switch for any reason whatsoever.
Nevertheless, employee retention also refers to the ability to make employees keep working in such a positive manner that they do not exit the company voluntarily or involuntarily.
To conclude, retention of the employees is a competency of an organization, just as making sales, earning a profit, preventing loss, etc., to lessen the number of its employees leaving it willingly or unwillingly.
Why is employee retention important?
It is absolutely essential for an organization to retain its employees, especially the ones that it considers as an asset. That said, it is never easier to even fill the gap left by the employees that a company may consider as an average joe, let alone by the dedicated ones. So, regardless of how worthy an employee for its organization is, keeping them working for it is important.
One of the main reasons why it can be hard for a company to let go of its current employees is the idea of recruiting and training the newer employees::the expenses for job advertisements and the labor to test /interview and train.
A failure to retain current employees leads to the labor of testing and training the new employees.
Employee retention is also important for building a better workforce besides cost-cutting.
New hirings may also result in decreased productivity for a company. The reason being the fact that a fresh employee, mostly, requires some time to get used to the things, so as to speed up their work. Not only this, but it also impacts the entire workforce when they have to make up for the lower level of productivity of their newer counterparts.
In addition, higher employee retention may also positively affect the overall morale of your employees. With a fewer number of your employees leaving and most of the workforce serving for a longer period, it tends to create an emotional connection between the employees and the organization.
Reduced employee turnover and increased employee retention are not only important for lessening the cost related to the hiring and training but for building a better workforce as well. Therefore, a company should consider all of its options before making an employee leave willingly or unwillingly.
Stats that prove why employee retention is important
- Involuntary employee turnover leads to a 6% decrease in the overall workforce.
- Companies lose 13% of their employees every year due to a lack of retention
- Top companies have the number of employees leaving close to zero
- The average rate of employees leaving at key posts annually is 3%.
- Replacing a previous employee can cost one-half to two times their salary.
- Absence of employee retention can cost up to $2.6 million yearly.
Statistics with respect to employee retention also advocate its importance.
Most of the time, an organization strives to keep its talented employees but does little to keep the others. Furthermore, it is also common for companies to make employees exit over their unsatisfactory performance.
It is of utmost importance for employers to keep the top talent working for themselves. However, it is also equally important to retain the average employees and to avoid firing the employees to an evitable extent.
The reason why employers should avoid terminating the employees, irrespective of their performance or skills, is because the involuntary turnover leads to a 6% decrease in the overall workforce.
It means that when employees are made to leave the company, it does not give a good impression to the other employees. As a result, some employees seek a better opportunity due to the reasons of job instability and job insecurity.
Additionally, a company should also try to keep (retain) the employees other than the ones that have critical importance for the company. And it has been seen that companies lose 13% of their employees every year due to lack of retention, leading the number of employee turnover to an undesired level.
Nevertheless, companies should take adequate measures to minimize their employee turnover since the top companies have the number of employees leaving close to zero if not zero. However, you can also consider your employee retention rate as strong if the annual number of your employees at important roles leaving is 3%; it is the average rate of employees leaving at key posts every year.
Bravo Recognition Strategies For Better Employee Retention
Instant Bonuses
Nothing pays off the extra efforts and the late-night work better than an immediate reward.
A reward that is given rather late against the above and beyond performance still makes all the hard work worth it. However, an on-the-spot bonus has a place that is second to none. And while it is a great way to recognize the employees, it also goes a long way in helping a company to retain top talent.
Considering the importance of instant rewards, Bravo comes with such functionality that enables a company to reward its employees quickly after achieving an important task. For this purpose, it comes with the feature of ‘Bravo Points.’
The bravo point(s) is a great utility that helps a company appreciate its hardworking employees immediately, thus making the recognition efficient and more productive.
Another important aspect of this feature is that using it, a company does not reward the employee immediately; instead, it rewards the instant points that lead to earning different rewards later. Thus, it helps a company to perform a quick and, thus, efficient recognition since the employees are acknowledged right after their significant achievement. And at the same time, it does not incur any cost, except for the reward that employees earn using their earned bravo points.
Lastly, however importantly, it also helps when employers need to retain top talent.
Read: Benefits And Disadvantages Of Giving Bonuses To Employees
Company-named Apparels
It is one of the innovative employee retention strategies to provide employees with such outfits that have the company name written on them. The reason why this approach is considered ingenious is that besides recognizing employees, it also helps promote a company.
Generally, it pays to market a business. However, with each member of your workforce proudly wearing the company-named clothing, the business gets promoted wherever the employees go.
With the employees being recognized and the company being promoted amongst the general masses at the same time, this strategy is fair to be termed as innovative. Also, needless to state, it helps retain top talent.
Customized Rewards
One of the employee retention strategies for better employee retention requires a company to be personalized in its rewards. Essentially, each employee has their own liking and disliking.
It could be the case that an employee least likes, if not dislikes, a reward received after a prolonged period of hard work in return for a worthwhile performance. As a result, the reward and recognition may not prove to be productive. And it may also not help to keep the employee on the course of good work.
Being personalized in your rewards and also recognition can help you get the desired results against your appreciation. A company, therefore, should do its best to provide customized rewards to its employees. However, for this, a company may be required to go the extra mile as it would need to learn the likes/ dislikes of its workforce.
That said, at the end of the day, it would totally pay off for a company to provide its employees with the rewards close to their likes, if not entirely of their choice.
Bravo also comes with useful functionality in this respect. It allows an organization to provide its employees with personalized/ customized rewards against the points earned.
It goes without saying that when a company learns and subsequently rewards and recognizes its employees as per what makes them happier, it is bound to earn greater employee retention.
Celebrating the meaningful work
All the work from a talented individual deserves to be acknowledged and rewarded. But, the one that holds meaning for a company’s organizational success especially needs to be celebrated.
If a company even considers appreciating a significant achievement of an employee as unnecessary, it is likely to lose its best talent.
Again, Bravo comes with such functionality where you can appreciate and, thus, reward the employees for their meaningful achievement. Also, it comes with such features that help you celebrate a rather significant achievement with more passion.
Using Bravo, you can give your employees maximum Bravo points for their outstanding performance, which can help them in obtaining the highest rewards quickly.
Rewarding cross-cultural employees accordingly
In today’s world, regardless of an organization’s sphere, we can witness workforces consisting of culturally diverse employees. Additionally, it is possible for a company to have employees coming from culturally diverse backgrounds work for it remotely.
More often than not, companies hire foreign employees who work for them virtually or from the office because of their exceptional skills, which in turn help them compete better in their respective domains. Nevertheless, it’s normal to have diversity amongst employees, especially in the more developed part of the world.
Rewarding your cross-cultured employees, accordingly, helps in retaining them better, who are the cream of the crops of their fields. In addition to this, it also helps to create harmony at the workplace by making such employees feel equal as belonging to their native counterparts.
Considering the importance of the matter, one of the Bravo recognition strategies helps an organization to gratify its intercultural workforce using its feature of international rewards.
The international rewards feature from Bravo allows its users in more than 25 countries to reward their cross-cultural employees appropriate to their culture.
Employee-preferred recognition and rewards
One of the recognition strategies of Bravo for the desired level of employee retention involves performing employee rewards and recognition the way employees of a company prefer.
It means that for a company to appreciate employees in a more constructive manner and to keep the talented individuals working for itself, it should learn the views of the employees towards its rewards and recognition approach.
It may be possible that an organization is doing its best concerning appreciating the employees. However, it is not being paid off. And the reason could be none other than that the way it has been acknowledging its workforce is not much welcomed by its employees.
For that reason, it is absolutely essential to learn the preferred way of your workforce concerning the rewards and recognition. Also, it is why Bravo comes with such useful functionality of “Bravo Voice” that allows you to have a better realization of the perception of the employees.
Importantly, learning the perception of your employees in regard to the recognition is just one part of the “Voice” feature from Bravo. In fact, you can make use of this functionality in understanding the views of your employees besides rewarding them as well. So, such a helpful service can be of Bravo for a business.
Understanding where your recognition strategy stands in the eyes of your employees helps you to better it. As a result, the rewards given can pay off fruitfully later in the form of enhanced productivity and efficiency of employees. However, of course, it can also help to keep your highly skilled employees working for you.
Office tours
Office tours include taking employees to the outdoors, essentially a recreational spot. It can, however, also include taking employees to another city for amusement and leisure purposes. And, more often than not, these tours are company-sponsored.
This strategy not only gives the employees a much-needed break but also helps to freshen their minds. Thus, coming back from a recreational tour, the employees have their depleted energies refilled, making them work with the best of their productivity and creativity levels.
Lastly, with it, the employees are not overburdened and made to work with higher work-related frustration levels. As a result, the employees are able to enjoy their routine work and tasks as well, leading to a happier workforce and, consequently, better employee retention.
Celebrating Work Anniversaries
Better employee retention is not limited to appreciating the employees over an achievement, successful efforts, or significant contributions only. Instead, retaining the employees requires one to appreciate the employees for all their efforts and work, including the time period that they have spent working for you.
It is one of the Bravo recognition strategies to celebrate the work anniversaries of employees irrespective of how significant their work has been or how worthwhile they are for the organization.
Nevertheless, celebrating the workiversaries (a term used these days in place of work anniversaries) does not necessarily involve cutting cakes or similar.
Rather, Bravo enables you to appreciate a year (or another year) of an employee working for you by providing them with the Bravo points, which can later be redeemed for availing different rewards, the Bravo rewards essentially.
In addition to this, employees can also be appreciated using Bravo by simply wishing them publicly before the entire workforce. And all this leads to better employee retention.
Recognition Peer Lunches
One of the ways for a company to retain its top talent is by arranging a lunch, or a dinner, for a talented employee with their managers. However, the best approach for this strategy requires one of the company executives to have lunch with the worthy employee as an acknowledgment for all their hard work and efforts.
It not only helps to perform employee recognition but also gives an employee a feeling of belonging, which can help a company in its employee retention.
Wellness programs
Employee wellness programs are one of the best ways to appreciate the continuous hard work and efforts of your employees. Also, this approach comes with dual benefits.
The first obvious benefit is that the employees receive appreciation for their due work, which makes them stay on the course of action. While the second benefit is that with your employees being overall healthy, it also affects their efficiency, performance, productivity, etc., at the workplace in a positive manner.
This strategy, thus, brings manifold benefits as not only does it helps in employee recognition but also improves their professional capabilities by making them relatively sound physically and mentally.
Since healthier employees mean more efficiency, it results in a company being more satisfied with its employees and vice versa. And all this leads to the employees staying with the company for a longer period of time, that is, greater employee retention.
Additionally, a recent employee wellness survey speaks volumes of its importance for both the employees and their employer companies.
Gifts to make the workplace better
Helping employees in making their working conditions better as a token of appreciation is also one of the Bravo recognition strategies that come with multiple benefits.
A company, in return for the excellent services of an employee, can give them such gifts that will make the workplace a better place to work; for the very employee in particular and the entire workforce in general.
You can also provide a meaningful gift to dedicated employees, which may help elevate their levels of creativity. It will also help to remind them that all their dedication to the company does not go unnoticed whenever they are left exhausted in achieving a difficult task.
Last but not least, this is also a great approach in terms of employee retention for an organization.
Public shoutouts
Appreciating your employees publicly by giving them a public shoutout is one of the best ways to appreciate your dedicated employees.
You can practice this approach on any of the social media platforms on which the company has its official accounts. Also, you can mention an employee and their deserving work in the weekly/ monthly company magazine or during the company meetings.
You can also make use of a platform, such as Bravo, for this purpose. It empowers you in performing a broad-level appreciation of employees by allowing you to recognize the efforts of an employee before the entire organization.
In addition to this, Bravo allows you to provide more details while performing employee recognition: you can share the deserving work that led the employee to earn appreciation. It not only makes recognition more specific but also helps make it more transparent.
Giving a public shout to your employees also is a great way to retain them. While the wide scope of this type of recognition elevates their confidence, it also helps to make them stay with the company. Thus, helping an organization keep its employee retention high.
On-spot recognition
It is one of the Bravo recognition strategies to perform an on-spot employee resignation. Thus, it lets a company instantly appreciate an employee after a good performance.
A company that is very timely in appreciating the efforts and work of its employees ensures that its employees stay consistent in their hard work towards the company.
Summary
Employee retention of a company is its capability to keep the number of its employees leaving to a minimum. Thus, higher retention of the employees leads to a lower employee turnover. Similarly, a lower number of retained employees means a higher number of employee turnover.
It is important for a company to become robust in its employees’ retention. And the primary reason for it is that a company needs to start the process of hiring from scratch (advertising, testing, hiring, training, etc.) against the position that has become vacant when an employee leaves forcibly or not.
Bravo, employee rewards and recognition platform, helps greatly in this regard. It has such a utility that helps a business to perform fruitful employee recognition that, in return, keeps them employed for the company for a longer period. So, it makes the worthy and top employees hard to leave, helping a company keep its dedicated and hardworking employees.
You can learn better about Bravo and how it works in this respect here.
