Employee retention can save a great deal of time and money for your company. If you have taken the time and expense to recruit, train and integrate an employee into your organization, it makes sense to protect your investment by doing whatever you can to keep them. But companies frequently make mistakes when it comes to retaining great people.

Hiring Without an Eye to the Future

When you are hiring, it’s easy to just look at immediate need without keeping a long-range strategy in mind. Structure your interview to identify the candidate who has the skills to fill your current open position, but also the attitude, ambition and abilities required to remain with the company for the long term, possibly in roles of increasing responsibility.

Failing To Develop Your Current Employees

Professional development is one of the most critical areas to focus on to keep talented people with your company. Build a projected career path with each employee, with steps on how to get there. Encourage interdepartmental transfers if that’s what it will take for an employee to reach his goals. Offer on-site training and development or reimbursement for conferences, classes or certifications.

Not Providing Clear, Achievable Goals

Clear expectations and metrics are critical for employees to know where they stand. Without knowing what milestones they are expected to reach or a strong sense of what defines success in their role, employees feel lost and without purpose. Provide metric s that quantify success, ongoing feedback and support and the tools and training that they need to succeed.

Keeping Bad Managers

It’s been said that people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their managers. Compare retention rates among departments to detect if any one department is losing more people than the others. Review exit interviews or 360 evaluations to get employee feedback on manager performance. Correct or retrain any ineffective managers you uncover or replace them if they are unable to change problematic management tactics or styles.

Disregarding the Importance of Support

Success frequently depends on having the right tools in place. Update the technology your employees have to work with. Perform ergonomic assessments of their workspace. Offer ongoing training to keep them up-to-date and effective in their roles. Watch for morale drains such as excessive workload, negativity and gossip. Dealing promptly with such annoyances can improve retention rates.

At SMR Group Ltd, our experienced staffing partners help you identify, attract, and retain top talent. Contact us today for a consultation.