Keeping your employees happy and engaged is crucial to the success of your organization. A high employee turnover rate will lead to low collective employee morale, causing an increase in company expenses.
Morale has a tendency to be contagious within the workplace. If you want to foster an environment that attracts strong workers, you need to continuously think about your retention strategies. Whether your employee turnover rate is high or low, there is always room for improvement within your culture.
Keep reading for tips on employee retention strategies once you’ve gotten them in the door.
Prioritize Mental Health to Combat Job Burnout
Job burnout is a type of extreme exhaustion that comes from work-related stress and is no doubt a major contributing factor to the “Great Resignation”. When it comes to hourly, frontline work, it’s not hard to see why many people are completely drained from their jobs, especially when considering the rise in challenges due to ever-changing consumer demand.
To address rampant job burnout among hourly employees, organizations must invest in comprehensive mental health services for their employees. Hourly employers should consider opting for employee healthcare plans that include coverage for things like therapy and psychiatry. Additionally, employers should try to provide access to apps like Headspace or Calm to drive home the importance of unwinding after a stressful day.
Finally, as much as possible, hourly employers should allow employees to take mental-health days as necessary. While this may not always be feasible, it’s extremely important to show employees that you care more about their wellbeing than your bottom line.
Develop Career Paths for Hourly Employees
Many employees are having a hard time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, particularly when it comes to their careers. If a worker doesn’t see a clear path to a more elevated or higher-paying position at your company, they will look elsewhere.
Spend time with your HR team to define career paths for your hourly employees. Start by meeting with hourly workers to better understand what types of roles they’d like to transition into in the future. Once you’re done with your research, communicate to current employees possible career paths within your organization and tangible steps they can take to get there. Offering clear trajectories to advancement can make all the difference during a time in which people are leaving their jobs right and left.
Set Expectations
When building an employee retention program, it’s imperative to think critically about your first impression with prospective candidates. That’s right—employee retention begins even before a potential employee has applied to work at your organization! Be sure to take extra care when writing the duties and responsbilites in the job descriptions in order to set accurate expectations with your future employees.
There’s nothing worse than starting a new job only to find out that your day-to-day is nothing like you expected. That’s why it’s absolutely vital to be as honest and exhaustive as possible when writing a job req. When you set accurate expectations with prospective employees you’re much more likely to retain them once they’ve signed on to work at your company.
Onboard with Intent
A lackluster onboarding process fosters a foundation of negativity for new workers. A survey conducted by SHRM of 350 HR leaders in the U.S. found organizations are not effectively onboarding their new hires at 76% of respondents’ workplaces. Poor or absent onboarding processes lead to lower productivity, higher employee turnover, and lower employee engagement.
Onboarding should begin as soon as a candidate accepts the position—sending them a congratulatory note can go a long way! The next step is to personalize onboarding as much as possible, while still taking into consideration how to scale the process.
One way to do this is by having a question in the interview process that gives you a window into the candidate’s interests (e.g., favorite restaurant, sports team, etc.). Then on their first day, you can send them a gift or even a GIF that relates back to their pastimes. Just showing that you remember something personal about the new employee can set your onboarding process apart. A strong onboarding program is key to improving your organization’s employee retention.
Offer Flexible Schedules
In a recent survey of over 2,800 frontline workers conducted by OnShift, 25% of those polled listed flexible schedules as a top perk. With so much change around how and when people work over the past two years, flexible scheduling has moved from a nice-to-have to a requirement for many hourly employees.
Simply put, if you can’t offer flexible hours to your frontline employees they will seek this benefit somewhere else. Beat your competition to the punch by implementing flexible scheduling ASAP. A perk like this will not only help you retain workers but can even attract new employees during the Great Resignation.
During this critical moment in the job market, it’s important to think critically about your retention program for hourly workers. With employees quitting their jobs at record-breaking rates it’s time to rethink everything you know about retention and implement some fresh new ideas. We hope these three tips will help point you and your HR team in the right direction!
Regular Recognition and Rewards
Instead of conducting performance reviews once per year, hourly workers tend to expect more immediate recognition and rewards. Consider implementing a three-, six-, and nine-month mini-review, and use the aforementioned communication channels to recognize worker milestones.
Showing appreciation for workers every few months with incremental incentives fosters motivation for workers not only to continue to work hard but also to stay on board longer.
Improve Employee Retention with Regular Communication
Frequent and transparent communication is one of the most overlooked employee retention strategies. A birthday note, work-aversary celebration, updates on how the company is doing, or even invites to pick up an extra shift before a holiday to give your employees additional spending money can go a long way in improving employee engagement. This helps build trust with your workforce, creating a happier culture. A workforce that feels informed and engaged is more likely to stay long-term.
Boost Benefits
Not all hourly employers are able to offer full medical benefits to their workers. If this isn’t an option for you, create a resource center (on your intranet, for example) where workers can find lists of names and contact information for community organizations or nonprofits that offer healthcare services at discounted rates or for free.
Worker wellness is also important inside the workplace. Consider setting up a peer-to-peer program that connects workers for brief one-on-one chats to get to know each other better. A better understanding of who coworkers are, how they work, and what their lives are like outside of work can build a sense of community and trust within the team, leading to happier and more fulfilled workers.
Check Their Pulse
This isn’t medical advice—rather, it’s a method of using frequent surveys to gauge workers’ thoughts and opinions about daily life at work. This can include anything from scheduling and teamwork to management and benefits. Checking in with your workers in this way can help them feel heard amid the cacophony of day-to-day operations.
When sending out pulse surveys by email, emphasize that workers’ feedback will be anonymous, which is more likely to result in honest answers.
Continue this consistent stream of communication with frequent newsletters, new-hire announcements, anniversary announcements, and more. Keeping in touch with your staff creates open lines of communication and transparency, leading to trust. This sense of trust is a great foundation on which to build additional employee retention strategies.
Benefits of Engaged Employees
- 59% reduction in turnover rates
- 20% better performance than competition
- 41% lower absentee rates
Overcoming Workforce Engagement Challenges
Engaging your workforce comes with numerous challenges, from identifying early signs of disengagement to delivering timely, meaningful interventions.
Traditional feedback methods often fall short, leading to reduced productivity and higher turnover.
To tackle these issues, organizations need advanced technology that offers real-time insights and personalized engagement strategies.
This ensures every employee’s voice is heard and concerns are promptly addressed, fostering a more connected and satisfied team.
