4 ways to stop good employees from leaving
One of the key roles of a leadership position is to retain and motivate your team to the best of your ability. Indeed, retention is a key metric that indicates the health of the organisation. If you believe you have a good team with a number of exceptional employees, ensuring that those individuals stay within your organisation should be one of your priorities: a high turnover of staff doesn’t portray the best image of your company, nor does it help with productivity in the long-run and replacing people costs money. In addition, any specialist knowledge or contacts the leavers have will leave with them – potentially to a competitor.
Here are a few top tips to prevent your best employees from leaving:
1. Recognise their hard work
The top employees within your company will go above and beyond to achieve their set goals. If you, as a leader, fail to notice such achievements and give all employees the same praise, you are guaranteed to lose the best workers. Unless they are desperate, good employees won’t stick around to be underappreciated. Reward those who achieve their set goals but do something special for those that go above and beyond.
2. Make it fun!
A workplace with no fun can be a real slog and frankly not an enjoyable place to be a part of. Although a workplace should be serious and efficient, planning fun activities and some social team bonding activities can really help to boost morale. Such occasions allow employees to get to know each other on a more personal level and find friends among colleagues. Also, if you know a bit more about their personal circumstances outside work, then it may shine a light on some of the behaviours that you see. Charity work can be a real opportunity for people to unite behind a common cause and give an opportunity for all cultures and religions to do common activities.
3. Keep everyone informed
Some of the worst things a leader can do is fail to inform or to misinform their team about tasks and events which are taking place. This could lead to frustration or embarrassment. Ensuring that there is a clear communication strategy in place means that there will be greater productivity and motivation. One idea would be to log news and key updates online to keep the whole workforce in the loop. According to a recent survey, 94% of companies fail to alert their workforce on a daily basis.
4. Provide feedback
Good leaders and managers arrange regular meetings with their teams to iron out any issues which may prevent them from growing in the company. Discussions about where expectations haven’t been met in either behaviour or performance are not a bad thing, as long as the messages are communicated in the right way. This is also the ideal opportunity for leaders to help with coaching and suggestions about how to develop. Motivated employees should use the constructive feedback to develop their techniques and change their strategies.
For further information on leadership and how you can better motivate your employees, please contact Glen at St. Andrews Consulting today.
