The Link Between Employee Engagement and Employee Retention
Employee engagement in the workplace and employee retention are two terms that are often used interchangeably. In reality, there is a difference between employee engagement and employee retention. Employee engagement refers to a person’s emotional connection to their job. Employee retention refers to the length of time that an employee stays with an enterprise. Employee retention is often considered the primary indicator of an enterprise’s success in retaining talent. However, when it comes to employee engagement and retention, there is also a strong connection between them.
Engaged employees are more likely to stay in their current roles than disengaged employees. This means that if you want your employees to stay with your enterprise for the long haul, then it is vital for you to focus on improving employee engagement levels within your enterprise. Employee engagement and retention strategies are closely related, as engaged employees lead to employee retention.
Employee Engagement and Retention Strategies
Research shows that enterprises with highly engaged employees report lower turnover rates, higher productivity levels and profits, and better customer satisfaction scores than those with low levels of employee engagement. For example, one study found that when an employee’s job role changed from engaging to less engaging, the employee’s turnover rate increased by 50%. Here are a few ways to improve employee engagement:
- Develop a solid onboarding process, including introduction, orientation, and training where necessary. New employees should clearly understand the organization’s vision, mission, goals, and structure. They should also learn your feedback and review systems and know what you are trying to achieve.
- Ensure that the company culture score is high using short and direct employee surveys frequently and gathering intel on the pulse of the organization. The culture score is essential as it helps you instantly ward off potential areas of concern and discover areas of improvement.
- Implement comprehensive and continuous feedback in the workplace with the 360-degree tool and gather anonymous feedback from peers, co-workers, superiors, and clients.
- Use rewards and recognition to let the employees know they and their contributions are valued.
- Offer growth opportunities, so your employees know their growth expectations will be met. Help them with their individual goals even as they work on the organization’s goals.
- Establish clear communication channels across the board to ensure a collaborative workforce.
- Create a company-wide inclusive culture through internal communications, such as an intranet, newsletter, or workshops and events.
The various employee engagement strategies and employee feedback tools help you avoid problems, such as a lack of motivation, job satisfaction, inter-office politics, etc.
How does Employee Retention help?
Employee retention has proven to bring greater value to the business than company culture. Some of these benefits include:
- When employees stay in the organization, you do not need to hire new employees or engage in onboarding and training processes.
- Long-term employees are experienced employees. They have grown with the company, learning new skills and gathering more experience. They can also be useful for training new employees.
- Working together for a long time helps build strong relationships. They care about each other’s growth and success and display high levels of engagement.
- Frequent turnovers are a cause for concern for new employees. Long-term employees offer a glimpse at growth and stability.
While the above benefits are vital to a company’s growth culture, they are only possible when they feel engaged with the company. That is the link between employee engagement and retention.
Employee Engagement in the Workplace
Enhancing employee engagement through performance management tools and technologies is a growing trend in the workplace. A well-engaged workforce can significantly impact your company’s bottom line. Employee engagement is employees’ emotional and intellectual commitment to your enterprise and its goals.
Performance management and continuous feedback tools help you analyze employees’ attitudes, behaviors, and interactions toward their employer. Employee engagement surveys are one way to measure engagement levels within your enterprise accurately.
A work environment that is challenging and collaborative keeps employees motivated and productive. Greater productivity directly impacts the bottom line, clearly establishing the connection between employee engagement and retention. Therefore, holistic employee engagement strategies have never been more critical than in today’s business world filled with Boomers, Millennials, GenX, and Gen Z.
Conclusion
Understanding the link between employee engagement and employee retention is of paramount importance. It is a start to developing strategies to ensure a stable workforce. Implementing smart tools and software solutions to improve company culture and employee engagement is the right way to go if you want to retain your high-performing workforce.
