Ultimately, employee retention efforts are all about making your employees happy and meeting their needs in the workplace to the degree that they do not feel inclined to leave your company. However, perhaps the best way to discover what it is your employees are looking for to make them happy is to simply listen to their greatest complaints. To help companies better understand what it is that most employees find to be lacking in their jobs and in the workplace, and conversely to help them improve their employee retention strategies, executive search firms have compiled the top ten complaints that most employees have shared about their employers so that others my learn from these mistakes and grow from them.
- A Lack of Competitive Compensation
While this may seem like a fairly elementary issue, apparently it is still one that needs to be addressed. All too often employers, rather than viewing their employees as an investment for the future profit and success of their organizations, instead are asking themselves how cheaply they can acquire an individual. This method has been proven to fail time and again and will only result in employees jumping at the first opportunity that may arise which offers better pay.
- Unequal Pay Increases Among Employees
For most employees the appearance a fair and equitable system in the workplace is fundamental to their contentment in their positions. This need for fairness extends into the compensation program as well, as many employees will discover that newer hires are being paid more than those who have been their longer. Simply correcting this issue to compensate employees with more seniority over newer employees, or even adjusting to a more equal pay grade can go a long way to promoting employee happiness and the perception of equity throughout an organization.
- Insufficient Benefits Programs
While employers will often provide the most elementary of benefits programs, which most commonly include health and dental coverage, retirement, and paid vacation time, many employees find that these programs are usually less than sufficient at meeting their needs, costing too much and not meeting certain needs. These issues will need to be resolved quickly before employees begin jumping ship to take up jobs with companies that do provide programs that meet their needs.
- Micromanagement
One of the most cited issues by many individuals when asked why they left a particular position is due to poor supervision of one kind or another, though more often than not this is due to issues of micromanagement on the part of supervisors. No one wants to have someone standing over their shoulder critiquing, criticizing, and making their job all around far more stressful. However, managers should be careful that they do not go too far in the other direction as well, as a distant and unresponsive manager can be just as problematic as the other.
- Failure to Reward Appropriately
Many employees have complained that a lack of recognition and reward for their hard work and success makes them feel as though they are being undervalued and unappreciated by their employers. While such rewards can take on any number of shapes and forms, perhaps the most effective is the use of bonuses and pay raises to demonstrate just how much an employee’s efforts have meant to the organization.
The final five most common employee complaints collected by executive search firms can be found in the second half of this article.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
