6 Ways to Improve Your Client's Employee Retention

Recruiting and hiring new staff is a time-consuming and costly enterprise. As such, it is wise to retain employees so as to avoid unnecessary recruiting and hiring. But how do your clients do that? How do they retain employees when so many other employers are looking to steal them away?

Successful employee retention is not a matter of developing a single model or strategy. It is a matter of understanding what employees expect, and then doing everything they can to meet those expectations. It is a matter of being as loyal to them as they are expected to be to the company.

Here are proven ways to improve your client’s employee retention:

1. Compete on Pay and Benefits

Despite everything else that might be important to employees, today's workers still fall back on compensation as the final arbiter. That means your client’s company has to be prepared to compete on both pay and benefits. If their company is not paying what is considered prevailing wage in their industry, it is time to up their game. If competitors are offering better benefits packages, it's time to figure out how they can make their benefits better.

2. Optimize Company Culture

There is a growing trend in HR to focus on cultural fit when hiring new employees. Cultural fit takes precedence over education, experience, and acquired skills. It's a wise idea to optimize your client’s culture in order to make staying with them worthwhile for employees.

If the company culture is toxic, it's time to clean things up. The goal is to create a positive company culture that makes people want to work for their organization. With a positive culture in place, they will find it a lot easier to retain workers.

3. Invest in Employee Careers

If your client wants to retain their employees, do not give them jobs. Offer them careers instead. And with those offers, invest in their careers through ongoing training and professional development opportunities. Pay for local college courses, conduct regular training sessions, and give your employees opportunities to develop professionally.

4. Be Flexible with Time

Unless their business requires a strict attention to time, try to be more flexible. For example, some of the most successful companies in the world do not force employees to maintain specific schedules. Employees are free to come and go as they please just so long as the work is completed within a given time frame. They can choose the hours they work, the days they work, and whether or not they want to take time off.

5. Allow Freedom to Work

Hand-in-hand with flexibility is the freedom to work as the employee sees fit. The opposite of freedom is micromanaging, which is something far too many employers are guilty of. Don't let your company micromanage workers. Give employees as much freedom as possible to do their jobs as they see fit. As long as work is completed up to standards, does it really matter how employees get there?

6. Reward Achievement

Few things motivate employees better than recognition. If your client has excellent performers in the workplace, reward them for that performance. Moreover, do it publicly. When employees see their coworkers being recognized for their accomplishments, they are motivated to do better themselves.

Employee retention really boils down to treating employees in the same way you expect to be treated. It's really just the golden rule adapted to HR. If your client treats their employees well, pays them fairly, and recognizes them for their hard work, they will keep them around for a long time.