Keep a hold of staff is key to success

Dec 14 2009 by Carole White, The Journal

A HIGH staff turn over can be extremely costly to your business in more ways than one.

Not only does it cost money to advertise for and train new staff, but internal morale falls, harming the company’s external reputation and losing business.

Retaining your staff is of paramount importance and the key to staff retention lies in a good recruitment process and an honest organisational structure.

A good idea for any business is to create and maintain a staff retention strategy that motivates and engages employees. This requires nurturing positive cultural values, such as trust, respect, empathy, tolerance and conscientiousness.

On the other side of the scale, it’s important to be honest about less positive values, actively eliminating negative attitudes and behaviour.

There may be positive reasons for a member of staff to move on, such as an attractive new job. However, their departure may signify some dissatisfaction with the present job.

Research has shown the most common negative reasons:

Poor salary and benefits

A lack of training and development

Dissatisfaction with management

Unfriendly colleagues

Lack of work/life balance

Misrepresentation of the role.

Improved staff retention should be the result of adopting a mix of the following:

Ensure those being recruited have a realistic idea of what the job entails

Improve career development

Scheduled appraisals

Strong diversity policies

A means of dealing with bullying

A good work/life balance

A mechanism for staff to register dissatisfaction

Leadership training for managers.

The ultimate aim should be to make every employee feel valued and proud of the work that they do, therefore developing a working environment that encourages diversity and creativity. If an employee is happy with the work, this enthusiasm is infectious both to their colleagues – and customers.

Adopting a strategy for staff retention will greatly benefit your organisation, but don’t think it can be developed and then remain static. As a company develops, so do employees’ needs – as should your strategy.

Your employees are your main asset and no business would be here without them. Take care of them, treat them with respect and you will be on your way to success.

If you require any further support or advice, call Tedco on 0191 428 3300 or email enquire@tedco.org  or visit us at www.tedco.org

Carole White, business support manager, Tedco