As team members, business managers or stakeholders, we all know staff come and go. And we dread the difficulties it can cause, especially if they are key or specialist. Staff retention has always been a hot topic for all companies. In the cold light of today’s post-Covid world, however, it is starting to cause a major headache for businesses with demand currently outstripping supply across many different sectors in the UK and Europe.
What’s more, if you’re faced with a skilled employee exodus and suddenly find yourself staring into the recruitment abyss, you’d better have deep pockets and plenty of time on your hands. According to recruitment platform, Glassdoor, the average cost of hiring a new employee in the UK stands at £3,000 with the process taking a whopping 27.5 days. Time and money; two of the things in life we can never have enough of.
How to keep hold of your existing team
Clearly the most cost-effective option is to ensure you keep hold of your existing team. So, what can be done to improve staff retention? Here are our top 5 tips to help you improve staff retention in your company for both the short- and long-term.
- Examine the daily detail
Take a closer look at your daily processes and operations. Is there any opportunity by which you could remove repetitive tasks for key staff and free them up to focus on what matters i.e. business growth and development? The answer to this question, in our experience, is almost always a resounding “yes”. Make a list of the tasks you identify and keep hold of it; it’s going to help you improve your staff retention once you’ve finished reading this post. - Find out what your employees think
Implement an employee satisfaction survey and don’t be put off by the results. Retaining staff, good staff, requires contentment on various levels, not just professionally and personally. Does your team enjoy what they do? Do they find their role stimulating? Do they desire flexible working? Do they feel valued and rewarded? All of these potential issues can be remedied quickly and cost-effectively in numerous ways. It is possible to create a contented workforce, but you need to nurture it and involve each employee in the process. Oh, and don’t forget to run regular surveys to make sure you keep a step ahead at all times. - Stop getting side-tracked
Are some of your employees getting distracted from the core job they were hired to do? If so, why? Is it because they’re having to carry a fellow employee? Are they being stretched too thinly across too many areas of the business? Taking away any obvious distractions will allow each person to concentrate on exactly what they’re supposed to be working on. Only being pulled in one direction rather than multiple ones is the goal here. - Recognise and reward
It goes without saying that a happy and contented workforce is a productive and successful workforce. By taking a little time to recognise your team’s achievements you will not only boost individual and group morale, but you will also see an improvement in efficiency and, ultimately, sales. So many companies don’t do this. They are too focused on the job in hand, and they really are missing a key trick. Try it yourself right now. Stop for a minute. Sit back and appreciate how far everyone in your business has come and what they’ve achieved recently. If you show your appreciation, even with a small gesture such as Friday afternoon pizzas or giving everyone their birthday off (note: it doesn’t have to be financial reward!), you will generate trust and value and staff will want to stay. Recognise and reward and keep doing it. You’ll reap the benefits in a matter of months. - Consider outsourcing
Our fifth and final tip. Have a back-up plan, a plan B! Consider an outsourcing partner. No matter how well you plan for changes in staff or manage to retain key team member gaps and new demands, unexpected change will occur. Whether you have immediate needs, or can see where there might be future gaps, select a suitable outsource partner and put the groundwork in place to minimise the delay in getting them in place to assist.
Equally, once you’ve identified those repetitive tasks, or those that are distracting certain personnel from their core role, outsource them to a company that excels in that specific area. This option is both cost-effective, easy to implement and can be quickly measured against KPIs or other tangibles. And if it’s IT skills or resource, data or project management, business continuity, datacentre service support or cloud you require, you’re in the right place because that’s exactly what our day job is!
If you’d like to find out more about how working with CCE could help your staff retention, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can call or email Karl Glenn on 07736 404080 or Karl.Glenn@comingce.com to arrange a free, no obligation chat at a time to suit you.