Some companies tend to overlook and to a serious degree on how to keep their employees productive and content, and also how retain that individual in that working environment for as long as possible. The continued health and success of any organization depends on employee retention, and plenty problems can manifest from this if it is not taken seriously. The Baby Boomer Generation has only further disturbed the fact that they are now nearing retirement and while though still in the work force, the population of the next generation, Generation X, makes up only half of the Baby Boomers.
In order to promote employee retention, here is a list compiled by executive search firms of the first five out of ten keys that organizations will need to use to uphold employee retention.
1. Clarity of Duties
Pretty much the most essential component of a happy employee is when they have clear and well-defined parameters of their position. Many times an employee will become stressed with the ambiguity of their position because they are not sure of what is exactly being asked of them and what tasks they should and should not be performing. Some degree of change is necessary so boredom doesn’t occur and changes should occur smoothly so confusion doesn’t occur.
2. Open Communication
An effective and important factor in employee retention is making the employee feel as if they are a vital and contributing member in the company. The easiest way to do this is to encourage your employees to share their ideas on matters in the organization. It can be beneficial to the company opening a pool of two-way communication; the feed-back can improve existing ideas from right within the company.
3. Quality Management
Sometimes managers can be too overbearing on their employees, which can cause them to stress out and be unproductive and other times managers can be too lax and not motivate them to try to even work harder, let alone know what is going on. A good manager needs to know how to balance this and create a motivating work environment that has structure while providing clarity and the freedom for employees to work independently. This can be difficult to find but it is essential for an efficient workplace.
4. Just and Fair
In order for an employee to feel satisfied they have to feel that they are being treated fairly. If an employee gets passed over for a promotion or scolded and they believed it was done unjustly or unfairly, it has an impact on whether they view their job positively or negatively. Now it will never be possible to make everything seem fair but clarifying every decision can help smooth such issues over.
5. Application of Skills
Some employees may possess a skill set that may not be applicable to the current position but can still benefit the company in some critical way. By overlooking an employee’s offer to help out with an alternative skill set you can be seen as not making use of the employee’s full potential. If an employee makes an offer to help it should be taken in to serious account before being simply disregarded.
The last five executive search firm employee retention tips are in part two of this article.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
