ExactHire 3 ways to improve employee retention

3 Ways to Improve Employee Retention

Employee retention is the secret ingredient for long-term growth and competitive differentiation. Employers that hold fast to their best talent can wade off any storms, including pandemics, market competition, and even regulation.

For these reasons, retaining best talent must be a priority for employers.

Why is Employee Retention Important?

Organizations that successfully retain employees experience benefits beyond the saving of training and hiring costs. High retention helps attract the best talent as a company grows. This is because high employee retention rates contribute to:

  • Consistency in operations leading to efficiency and growth
  • Better customer experiences
  • A strong company culture that fosters employee engagement.

When you think about the importance of retention, don’t just consider long-term savings and benefits. High turnover can be costly by leading to financial deficits and the inability to fund required operational expenditures.

Statistics show that turnover alone costs the United States $1 trillion annually. This figure represents a trillion reasons companies must prioritize retention.

But many may ask, why such a high price tag?

Well, that’s because when employees leave a company, there are some costs to consider.

These costs include:

  • Lower morale levels for those left behind
  • Money and time to replace employees, including recruitment and onboarding costs
  • Reduced concentration and productivity
  • Lost knowledge and expertise that lead to inefficiency

Gallup estimates that replacing an employee may cost almost twice as much as hiring them.

So in order to avoid the costs of turnover and reap the benefits high retention, improve employee retention before the first day in these three ways.

Ways to Improve Employee Retention Before the First Day

1.) Write a great Job Description

A great job description should not only attract the best candidates, it should set accurate, positive expectations. This includes laying out company mission and values and, importantly, how current employees live them out.  Don’t hide company values as bullet points near the bottom of a description, as applicants are likely to gloss over them or view them as unimportant. Instead, tie your values to the job requirements.  Writing a great job description that tells a job seeker what to expect–beyond the job duties–is the first step to landing the best candidates.

How to write the best job descriptions?

  • Get the job title right. Ensure you capture the right title for the right job. Avoid fluff and be straightforward as to the nature of the job.
  • Short and sweet. It’s advisable to start with a succinct and straightforward job description. Give an engaging overview of the job, its history, role, and requirements.
  • Modifiers. It’s advisable to avoid extreme modifiers or superlatives. Superlatives include over-the-top languages like ‘best-of-the-best’, ninjas, Rockstars, and world-class tend to prevent potential candidates from applying. Instead, be straightforward.
  • Align responsibilities with growth. Ensure that the roles and duties captured in the job description align or reiterate the candidate’s possibility for development. Match the job requirements with the candidate’s expectations for continued professional growth.
  • Involve current hires. It is advisable to involve current employees in drafting job descriptions. Too often, job descriptions remain hidden in an HR department. Involving current employees may help provide a compelling illustration of the organization that best highlights a workplace.
  • Create urgency. There’s no denying that even if you’re not in dire need of workers or employees, you still want potential candidates to feel obliged to apply now. So, your job description must show urgency.

2.) Center Hiring Process Around Culture

Culture is a critical component of the hiring process. Unfortunately, many recruiters don’t realize how culture impacts recruitment and retention.

Have you ever encountered an organization that claims to have ‘respect’ as a core value, but then doesn’t promptly follow up with its applicants? This is an example of an employer that enshrines the opposite of what they exemplify in behavior. Any good candidate will quickly run away from the process.

Employers must promote values and culture that they can actually backup. This works both ways by attracting the right candidates and discouraging bad-fit candidates from applying. Organizational culture is at the center of the hiring process when everything reflects your culture – from the application process to conducting your interviews, negotiating offers, and onboarding new hires.

3.) Mentorship Programs

Employees want to feel appreciated. Most importantly, they want to grow with the company. The best way to retain employees, even when others are leaving, is to help them feel that they are important part of the company and its success.

Mentorship programs are a classic way of engaging employees and building long-term loyalty and trust. Employees who feel part of  a culture will remain loyal to an employer even when things get tough.

Mentorship programs help new hires feel part of the company by clarifying values and onboarding the employee–physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Mentorship programs achieve the following:

  • Extend opportunities for professional and career development
  • Improved productivity and onboarding
  • Building diversity
  • Leadership development
  • Creates opportunities for reverse mentoring
  • Supports and sustains a learning culture

There’s no denying that pairing up a new hire with a mentor is a great addition to the onboarding experience – particularly in a highly technical role, or when the hire is working remotely.

Mentors can welcome new hires to the company, offer guidance, and act as role models. In addition, hires can learn the ropes from experienced employees, creating a culture of continuity and momentum in workload processing and workflow activities.

ExactHire – Improving Your Employee Onboarding and Retention

ExactHire believes that the onboarding process begins long before hiring an employee–with proper planning, resources, and a strong work culture. We work with professionals from multiple industries – finance, insurance, legal, healthcare, education, administrative, and many more –to help them hire and onboard best-fit talent for their organization. Contact ExactHire to leverage recruitment solutions that breed the highest retention levels.

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