How to retain employees

One of the biggest challenges for any organ-isation is to keep its employers from hopping. Although there are some instances wherein the management can do absolutely nothing to prevent an employee from leaving, a good 80 per cent of employees leave because they are not satisfied with their current jobs. To ensure that you retain your quality staff, it is essential that you invest time in dealing with employee dissatisfaction.



Retaining employees is a task cut out for Human Resource (HR) managers. There are certain scenarios wherein a manager can do little to prevent an employee from leaving. These are the few ‘out of the blue’ cases like — an employee deciding to move out of the country;

personal illness not allowing him to work any longer; aiming for a higher-education full-time, et cetera. In these circumstances, it is difficult for a manager to

convince an employee to stay on. But, as mentioned before, these scenarios are quite rare and the main reason employees leave an organisation is the lack of job satisfaction.



Employees primarily leave because:

•    Their expectations are not met

•    They are not satisfied with the functioning of the management

•    They feel that they cannot grow in the organisation

•    They feel under-paid

•    They feel that their work is not being recognised

•    They feel that the workplace is a ‘sweat shop’

•    They feel stagnated, and feel that changing

organisations will

challenge them

•    They feel that the job is not secure



“If the employees have a problem, they will talk to me,” this is one of the common statements that we get to hear from HR managers these days, but this might not be the right thing to do, and it is always better to take a proactive approach in solving all these professional issues of your employees. It has been generally seen that employees inadvertently show some signs while they are contemplating making a shift, and as a manager, it becomes your responsibility to look out for these signs and work on them. Let us take a look at some signs which

can help you gauge whether

an employee is considering

quitting your company.



Symptoms to watch out for:

•    The employee has started taking leaves more frequently

•    The employee spends most of the time in the cubicle and does not take part in any of the team bonding activities

•    The employee looks disinterested and shies away from taking responsibility

•    The employee starts complaining about the way things are being run

•    The productivity of the employee decreases and the employee seems to be unperturbed by that



Employee retention ideas

•    Hire the right people

•    Keep your staff

well-informed

•    Involve employees

in important decisions

•    Take feedback frequently

•    Provide growth

opportunities

•    Be flexible

•    Encourage creativity

•    Provide recreation

•    Have a decent

compensation package



Employee turnover and retention

All companies brainstorm on how to improve employee retention and look forward to that golden mantra with which they will be able to

retain good employees. But unfortunately, brainstorming is all it remains. If only

these ideas were practiced effectively, they could help organisations reduce employee turnover.