Loyalty Blogs

Retaining key employees is crucial for the success of any organization. Having a team of a dedicated and committed team of employees not only helps in achieving business goals but also contributes to a positive work culture. Effective Employee Retention Strategies can help retain your top-performing team members for better productivity.

Keeping employees productive and loyal is becoming more difficult than ever, especially for Gen Z and millennials. That is why, organizations must focus on prioritizing employee engagement and implement effective strategies using a well-executed employee retention program to ensure the longevity of their workforce. In this blog, we will learn about the best employee retention strategies to retain employees as long as possible.

Challenges in Retaining Gen-Z Employees

As we know, engaging, retaining, and motivating employees is a complex process, especially with more & more Gen-Z and Millennial workers entering the workforce. The report says by next year, Gen-Z workers are expected to comprise around 25% of the labor force, which means businesses must find ways to keep them engaged.

Another research shows that approximately 50% of Gen-Zs are disengaged from their jobs, 40% want to leave within two years, and 35% even say they leave their current job without another opportunity available to them. Gen Z has also been dubbed the “restless generation”. However, it is not just Gen-Zs that are looking for new opportunities.

In a ResumeBuilder survey, it was found that 15% of Gen-Z & Millennial respondents were actively seeking jobs & 24% were passively looking. Job hopping, a practice where employees leave a position within two years, is becoming quite common. In the past five years, more than 50% of people surveyed had job-hopped at least once, and 25% had done it two or more times.

Gen-Z’s job hopped more often than Millennials, with 73% having done so in the past four years. Additionally, out of the 51% of survey respondents who believe that there is a certain amount of time one should stay with a company, 65% believe it is one year or less, and 12% believe it is two years. All these findings indicate that the days of receiving a golden award for long service are long gone.

You might be wondering, why employees are leaving so frequently. The reason is to fight for a good salary, better work conditions, more growth opportunities and more employee benefits. What can be done to retain them? Let’s find out in the next section!

Best Ways to Retain Employees

By using good employee engagement software, your organization can find new and effective retention strategies that can help retain employees for a stable workplace. We have shortlisted some of the best strategies below to give you an idea-

– Enhanced Onboarding Process

You must know that a dynamic onboarding Process plays a great role for recruits. That is why, it is essential to structure a program that makes the new joiners or fresh recruits not only feel welcomed and informed but also make them aware of how they will become a productive and respected member of the team for a long-term association.

As per the research by Bamboo HR survey, 29% of the new joiners usually decide within the first week if the job is the right fit for them or not and 70% even decide within the first month. This means that on average, the company has just 44 days to influence someone and retain them for a long time.

Make sure that you offer a welcome package with a personalized message from the CEO or team leader with an itinerary for the first few weeks of meetings, training, etc. Another way is to assign a mentor or a buddy to be available for any guidance and to resolve queries. Make sure that the corporate culture is communicated in every interaction.

– More Flexibility

Companies that embrace the culture of flexibility are the ones that have happy and satisfied employees, who are more likely to stay in the long run. A study on LinkedIn shows that a majority of workers have either left a job or have considered leaving due to inflexibility in work policy. Gen-Zs are the ones that are leading the way at 72%, with 69% of millennials, 53% of Zen X and 59% of boomers.

This clearly shows that if your organization is not offering flexibility in work policy, you may lose your most loyal employees in no time. Talking about recent times, remote work culture has gained huge popularity, and giving your employees the ability to work from home at least half of the time or offering adjustable working hours are the new expectations of the employees.

– Well-Planned Promotions

The most effective way to retain top performers is by giving them a raise. However, getting a higher position can also have a reverse effect, making them leave the company within a month of receiving their promotion. What could be the reason?

The new title plays a great role in improving an individual’s marketability giving them more chances to get higher pay elsewhere. Promotions may no longer be regarded as a reward if you put someone into a role that they view as less attractive. In addition to this, a promotion without a pay increase is likely to be viewed negatively. It can also happen that by the time someone is being promoted, they have already become a disaffected employee looking for new opportunities elsewhere.

The thing is it is important for organizations to constantly review and assess employee performance to proactively promote and reward the deserving employees who show commitment, creativity, and productivity before it’s too late or too little.

– Regular Trainings

Another reason why many employees quit their jobs is that they are given more responsibility without proper preparation, compensation or resources. Your organization must make sure that you provide a wide range of training programs that provide skill upgrades so that they can progress in their careers.

Make sure that you include mentoring and executive coaching to ensure that no one is promoted to the level of incompetence.

Closing Statement

In the end, we can say that organizations must understand and adapt to the evolving needs and growing expectations of the modern workforce is vital to retain key employees and foster a stable work environment. Make sure that you go through the points stated above that can help in retaining your best employees, who are responsible for your organization’s growth.

Need to motivate your top-most employees and retain them longer? Novus Loyalty can help! Known as a reliable employee loyalty platform, we enable different organizations across the globe to deliver a diverse catalog of benefits for loyal employees & help retain them for a longer time. Get Started today to see how Novus can help you delight your loyal employees!