Best 11 Employee Retention Strategies to Retain Your Top Talent 2023

Not only in the German labor market - but there in particular - there is a great shortage of skilled workers. Therefore, it is difficult and costly for companies to find the right talent. Integrating them into your corporate culture and thus retaining them long-term does not make the task any easier. The right employee retention program becomes a huge asset in the fierce competition for top talent.

Companies that are serious about employee retention introduce their policies. If it is possible to qualify and retain employees through targeted measures and programs, this becomes a significant competitive advantage.

However, suppose the employees of your own company are dissatisfied despite high work productivity and are looking for alternatives to their current work. In that case, it is high time to develop the right strategies for employee loyalty with a value-oriented corporate culture. The following 11 tips will help you improve employee retention and motivation.

1. Promote employee satisfaction through further training.

Constant learning is a basic requirement in the modern digital world of work for a company to compete. Continuing education is, therefore, one of the most important strategies for employee retention and creates a closer bond with the company, especially among younger employees of Generation Z and Millennials who long for professional development.

Retaining talent through further training should not be seen as a financial burden for the company but as an investment in the future. To make the hiring process successful, companies should consider hiring guides specific to each job. For jobs involving more specific skills such as GPT 3 developers, companies planning to hire GPT3 developers should first analyze if they will be able to provide this specific type of training in the future for their employees' career development. Through further training, the employees acquire new and professional skills corresponding to the constantly growing demands of technical development. The aim is to promote the particular strengths of the individual further. Focusing on the special professional qualification corresponding to the employee's interests creates an emotional connection to their work. Developing and using your training and education tools in the company offers an effective opportunity for further training.

2. Hybrid working models ensure satisfied employees.

The past two years have shown it clearly: remote work is possible and can become a lasting recipe for success. How to improve employee retention and motivation? Through hybrid working models.

Flexible working has become one of the most important factors people look for in a new job. As a company, you should take this fact into account.

Each working model is equally suitable for everyone. Hybrid work has the advantage that it can be adapted to the strengths of the employees. Some need the quiet in the home office for creative work, others the exchange of experiences in the office. Both become possible, which leads to an improvement in labor productivity. By dividing the working time into phases of a home office and presence in the company, team collaboration is not impaired. In addition to being present in the company, necessary meetings can be held via video conference or chat. Therefore, hybrid working models are among the preferred strategies for employee retention.

3. Employee retention strategies involve open communication.

To attract and retain satisfied employees, it is necessary to establish a culture of open communication. The team leader – in smaller companies and also the management – ​​must be accessible for exchanging information and, if necessary, for questions and problems of the employees. Managers must contribute to ensuring a constructive and timely exchange of information. You need to engage with each team member proactively.

Whether the employees work directly at the company headquarters or remotely in the home office is irrelevant. Every employee must know their tasks and responsibilities and those of the team members.

Using the right communication tools can make working easier. Providing all information necessary for the work plays an important role in communication. Appropriate document management and providing files in the cloud support this approach. Active and tolerant communication between management and teams is key to the right employee retention strategies.

4. Employee loyalty through regular feedback and involvement of employees in decision-making processes

Two essential strategies for employee loyalty are regular feedback from the team management to the employees and involving them in decision-making. An annual performance review may be correct, but regular discussions between managers and individual team members serve to improve employee retention. These discussions are about feedback on current projects, the assessment - or ideally the appreciation - of the work done, and development opportunities. Such meetings provide a good opportunity to ask team members for their opinions and encourage them to make suggestions for improvement actively.

Employees should be given the feeling that they are not left alone with their problems and concerns. This strengthens loyalty to the team leader and, thus, also to the company. Based on the trust gained, it will likely involve employees step by step in higher responsibilities. Regular feedback is a good way to improve employee retention and motivation.

5. Good teamwork helps with employee retention.

Studies show that most employees do not quit because of their job but because of their boss and a lack of acceptance in the team. A good manager, therefore, works consistently on team building. A company can only function in the long term with good teams. It is important that not only the best-qualified employees can contribute their ideas to the work process design.

Everyone must be given the feeling of being part of the team and making an important contribution to fulfilling the project goals. Team building measures can promote cooperation and cohesion among employees. Company outings, celebrations, and team events strengthen internal communication.

Modern society is all about diversity and inclusion. This must also be reflected in the corporate culture. Only if all team members respect each other will they do their work with commitment. Good teamwork is one of the best retention strategies.

6. Employee satisfaction requires the use of the right technologies.

For teams to successfully implement their projects, they need the right tools. Today's working world is networked and digital. As a company, you must provide your teams with the right software to map as many processes as possible in the same, familiar environment.

It is a great disadvantage if employees have to be trained with different tools, data cannot be consistently exchanged between the systems, or employees working from home cannot access important information in the company. With a uniform platform for all important applications and the associated mobile app, work productivity and employee satisfaction increased.

In this context, there is another aspect of how you can improve employee retention and motivation. An innovative digital platform, as mentioned above, can help promote employees' creativity. As a company, allow team members to spend less time brainstorming and working on additional projects.

7. Compensation in line with the market and loyalty bonuses are among the strategies for employee retention.

Every employee wants to feel that their work is being fairly rewarded. Regarding employee retention, salary payment is not the only criterion, but it is an important one. It is not advisable to put long-standing employees at a disadvantage compared to new hires and to pay them at a medium level because long-term employees expect a reward for their loyalty.

In a digital world, highly qualified employees have the advantage that they no longer necessarily have to look for a company close to where they live. Remote work or hybrid models offer the opportunity to work away from the company headquarters. Highly talented workers will change jobs if the pay does not meet their expectations.

Bonus payments should not be linked solely to performance. Regarding employee retention strategies, long-term affiliation with the company can also result in a loyalty bonus, and this procedure can be made known to all employees.

8. Reward employees and recognize efforts.

Employees do not always expect just a thank you or words of praise for special achievements. When big goals are achieved, teams and their members should be rewarded materially. Performance bonuses, bonus systems, or corporate gifts are suitable for this.

It is easier to assess a result based on concrete measured values. Sometimes the basic conditions are right, and success is easy to achieve. In other cases, complications arise, supply chains must be fixed, or contractual partners only partially fulfill the promises. In this case, the goal can only be reached partially or with a delay. However, the team's efforts were much greater than in the first case.

A good manager is characterized by precisely rewarding these achievements, and the employees are given a positive feeling. Both the material reward and the recognition of efforts have proven themselves in practice as well-suited strategies for employee loyalty.

9. Career opportunities support loyalty to the company.

Self-actualization is very popular with young Generation Z. If you as a company want to retain talent, they should be allowed to gain qualifications and thus move up the career ladder. One of the good strategies for employee retention is to communicate this principle at the recruiting stage. Therefore, the future team member's career goal should already be asked during the interview. If personal goals and development opportunities in the company diverge, a long-term commitment of the applicant is almost impossible.

It is important to remember that classic career ladders no longer correspond to today's ideas. Younger employees, in particular, no longer associate a career leap with taking on personnel responsibility and do not see their future as team leaders or managers. Rather, it is about realizing and taking responsibility for your creative ideas.

10. A good work-life balance is a prerequisite for long-term satisfied employees.

The right work-life balance is a crucial criterion for job satisfaction. That's why the company must support a healthy work-life balance authentically.

Company guidelines for working hours, such as flextime models, remote work in the home office, or part-time work, are a good basis for this, as is the avoidance of overtime and a flexible arrangement of parental leave. However, it is of no use to the employee if they can work part-time remotely in their home office during flextime with a hybrid working model but then do not have the right tools for communicating with the team or lack access to essential information because the document management is not in the cloud. The necessary technical requirements for smooth work are also part of a good work-life balance and, thus, part of the strategies for employee retention.

11. Innovative employee retention strategies: corporate social responsibility and environmental protection activities

The voluntary contributions made by companies, which have become known under the term Corporate social responsibility (CSR), aim to safeguard basic values ​​such as their employees' safety, health, and integrity. For example, our daycare centers enable a better work-life balance and are important in retaining talent.

Generation Z employees, in particular, are interested in their company's role in social issues and are loyal to it if the basic values ​​on both sides match. These include, above all, production or services geared towards environmental compatibility and sustainability.

Supporting our employees in doing voluntary work in clubs or nature conservation and the public recognition of these activities in the company creates a basis for satisfied employees. By communicating social commitment, small and medium-sized companies, in particular, can improve their employee loyalty and increase their competitive opportunities.

FAQ

What is meant by the term employee retention?

Employee loyalty is understood to mean measures that are intended to ensure the long-term employment of qualified specialists. These measures must be aligned with the corporate culture and the needs and goals of the employees. If these measures already begin in the recruiting process, the probability of success increases.

Why is employee retention important for every company?

The application and selection process for finding new specialists is time-consuming and costly for companies. Retaining qualified employees is not only a financially better alternative in the long term but also ensures a better working atmosphere and the associated continuous fulfillment of the goals set.

Can the employee retention rate be calculated?

Calculating the employee retention rate is quite simple. The starting point for the calculation is the selection of a suitable period. The employee retention rate for this period is the quotient of the number of employees employed during the selected period and the number of employees at the beginning of the period.

What value does a high employee retention rate have for a company? 

A high retention rate results from happy employees. If they feel like an integral part of the company, they will become positive multipliers and ensure image improvement. Based on their own experience, they can help recruit new specialists.