Guest blog by Beaconforce
The last couple of years have been a whirlwind of unpredictability to say the least. With that, some of us might be whispering to ourselves “What exactly is my purpose?”, “Am I really happy?”, “I really only have one life”.
The bottom line? Your people deserve to be heard! You know that the engagement and well-being of your people are key for your business to succeed.
Today more than ever, not taking care of your people translates into your best employees leaving the company. In the tech industry, leaders are generally combated with many demands. According to Amplified Group’s Tech Leader Survey Report only 88% of leaders have said that while they are willing to care for their people, they are undermined by other priorities.
The Great Resignation … Failure or Opportunity?
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a moment of great introspection for everyone. Introspection surrounding ourselves, our families, our health and our careers. But what was the result of this? That the lure of a huge paycheck or the excitement of a foosball table in the middle of the office or wearing your funkiest socks on a Friday are no longer enough for companies and their leaders to retain their top talent.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021. While it’s normal for people to leave their jobs to pursue different career paths, start a family, go back to school and many other reasons, this mass exit of people away from their desks is anything but normal.
And the reason you ask?
As cliche as it sounds, “life is short” and the pandemic has proven this.
If a job no longer meets the needs, expectations or desires of an employee, there is no reason in their mind as to why they should stay. Employees are more focused on their long-term happiness, health and well-being and it’s time for their leaders to get onboard or risk losing them for good.
Some people gain a new lease on life in the midst of a crisis and the last couple of years have presented what some may consider a mayhem of crises both personal and professional that are shared amongst all and with that an array of new expectations from both employers and leaders.
Make Your Employees the Centre
As leaders, we all know the cost of turnover and the immense impact it can have on your organization.
From a numbers standpoint, it’s definitely not good when you think about advertising new positions, interviewing potential candidates and the onboarding process and training. This poses unimaginable and unnecessary costs to your organization. If they would consider implementing the right culture and environment for their already existing employees, these costs would be totally avoidable.
There’s also a reason why they’re considered top talent or even just talent. They are TALENTED at what they do. They possess an undeniable amount of knowledge and have taken their time, energy, and expertise to become seasoned employees in your organization.
Not only have they given their time but everything your company has built has been because of them. Now there may be a chance that that knowledge, information, skills and, most of all, passion could be lost forever. This can lead to low productivity and, worse still, a confused team requiring a lot of hand-holding and guidance which can be detrimental to your business.
It’s safe to say that employee retention is important from both a financial standpoint as well as for the overall culture, morale, and productivity of your organization. By making your employees the centre and investing in employee engagement retention becomes a no-brainer and this contributes significantly to the overall success of your business.
Employees who feel highly engaged are more likely to stay with their current company for more than a year. The benefits to productivity are evident as organizations that prioritize employee retention experience better employee wellness, lower absenteeism, greater employee loyalty, greater customer service and overall greater profitability.
How To Do This?
Leveraging data to improve employee retention is a tried and tested approach that provides the right details for your organization. A data driven approach helps not just to understand the number of employees that are leaving but why they are leaving, which departments have the highest risk of turnover and most importantly what can be done to prevent it. The picture looks very different depending on the organization however the steps that should be taken are not so different.
1. Make it Quantifiable
There is beauty in numbers. Understanding your retention rate can help to quantify the extent of the problem as well as the impact it’s having on your organization.
People leave for many reasons including health or family issues. Understanding where exactly the problem in your retention is coming from is important so by making it quantifiable allows you to gain visibility on this.
2. Get to the Core
Once you’re done crunching the numbers you can now take the steps to understand why people are leaving and which factors have the highest impact. Is it compensation? Training opportunities? Work-life balance?
Also understanding how different employee demographics behave can be beneficial to understand if there is a general trend based on different groups (segmented by location, age, job function)
Having a clear understanding of this can help you target the direction of your intervention in a clear and effective way that will allow you to have the highest retention.
Read more on our blog post: How To Successfully Transition To A Hybrid Work Model
3. You have the numbers and you’ve reached the core. What next?
It’s time for your leaders to create specifically targeted programs that get to the root of the issues and struggles in your workplace and solve them.
You may realize when going through this process that not having a data infrastructure may hamper your ability to make the best data-driven decisions.
It may be necessary for your organization to invest in user-friendly systems that will do everything from tracking and analysis making the process as seamless as possible.
Beaconforce provides a scientific way to cut through the noise and give team leaders, managers and executives answers that will help steer your company in the right direction.
Engage your employees
Another important factor to note is that employees need to feel engaged, they need to feel like they have a voice within the organization and that their ideas and suggestions are being utilized effectively. An employee who feels heard and appreciated is loyal.
It makes us think, are we really doing enough to make our employees feel heard and appreciated or are we at risk of losing our top talent?
About Beaconforce
Beaconforce is a deep listening tool, based on solid science, which helps companies translate the voices of their people into insights and predictive analytics, creating more engaging, sustainable and better performing work environments.
