The Christmas festivities are over and the New Year has just begun. For many of us, this means a fresh start, a new diet or the giving up of a bad habit. However, for one in five of us, the New Year also signals the hunt for a career change or new job. ¹

A moderate level of staff turnover can be good for business, as new team members can bring fresh ideas and approaches. However, too high a turnover can prove incredibly detrimental. As well as financial repercussions, high staff churn can lower morale, dilute your knowledge base and harm your external reputation – costing you clients and future work.

To avoid this, every business needs to have a plan in place to retain their high performers and best employees.

So where do you start?

Understanding your Employees

The first step to retaining staff is to understand why your former employees have left. Ensure that you hold exit interviews with staff that are leaving and try to get to the bottom of why they are moving on. The reason might simply be that they want to try a new career path or that their lifestyle has changed, in which case, their departure is out of your hands. However, if other issues are raised, then these should be addressed internally as soon as possible.

Another way to understand the mind-set of your employees is through running confidential surveys that give staff the chance to speak up about any ideas or concerns they might have in the workplace. Similarly, holding open and honest appraisals provide staff with the chance to directly address management with their issues and gives you a chance to make changes before matters escalate further.

Offer Employee Benefits

If you want to keep top-notch talent, then you’re going to have to provide them with competitive salaries and an attractive benefits package. Ensure any promotions and pay rises are fair and transparent, to keep salary issues to a minimum. Make sure to always benchmark your salaries against your competitors too, so that you not only retain employees, but also attract the best talent when recruiting.

Many businesses offer perks such as health insurance, gym memberships and bonuses, which are incredibly attractive to new and existing employees. However, if these prove too costly, you can look at introducing other benefits, such as flexible working, free breakfasts, regular social events or dress down Fridays. These benefits are relatively easy to implement and shouldn’t break the bank, yet they will make a big difference to job satisfaction.

Set up Training and Career Development

Being able to grow in their career and feel good about the job they are doing is important to employees and their perception of your business. By investing in training and career development programmes, staff will develop a greater sense of accomplishment, self-worth and feel more valued in their role.

Similarly, your business will also benefit from staff training, as they will have new skills to offer, be more productive and should need less supervision by management.

Make your Employees Feel Valued

Making your employees feel valued and proud of the work that they do is one of the easiest ways of retaining and building close relationships with your staff. This could be a simple email that recognises a great piece of work, or a public thank you in front of the office. You could also show appreciation by introducing them to new clients, giving them additional responsibilities or nominating them for internal and external awards.