Attracting talented employees to your organization is crucial to your success—your company is simply more likely to thrive with a well-rounded, engaged team.
However, that’s only half of the equation. You also need to retain your employees. After all, the cost of hiring new workers can be high. Your organization will suffer if you’re constantly replacing employees due to high turnover.
If you’re not sure how to keep your employees engaged with your company, keep the following tips in mind. When employees are invested in their work, they’re far less likely to seek employment elsewhere.
Recognize Top Performers
This is one of the most valuable tips a team leader can apply—partially because it’s so easy to do so.
Ambitious employees want to know their contributions are valued. At your organization, all team leaders should make sure they acknowledge an employee who achieves an important goal, completes a project in an impressive manner, or generally demonstrates their commitment to the company through hard work.
That’s not to say you should treat your workers with kid gloves. You can still provide honest feedback when an employee isn’t performing to your expectations. Workers genuinely want to know where they stand. Without proper feedback, it’s very difficult to know how to improve.
Even so, you need to prioritize giving positive feedback when it’s appropriate to do so. This has been proven to boost employee engagement substantially.
You might even want to recognize employee contributions semi-publicly. For instance, you could send an e-mail to all members of your team or organization discussing a recent project. In this e-mail, you could single out anyone who went above and beyond expectations. This demonstrates to the other team members that hard work will be rewarded with recognition, encouraging them to do their best.
Encourage Friendships
Surveys indicate employees are less likely to leave a job if they have friends where they work. That means it’s a good idea to encourage your workers to socialize with one another.
There are several ways you can do this. You might set aside spaces for socializing in the office, such as the kitchen or lounge area, or you could organize outside work events, such as team bowling nights. In the employee handbook, mention that socializing at the office (to a reasonable degree) is not only permitted but encouraged.
Provide Clear Expectations
Your top employees will almost always be ambitious. They work hard because they want to progress in their careers. That’s why it’s important to provide growth opportunities. Offering training programs and professional development seminars is an easy but effective way to retain A+ players.
Your employees could also benefit from knowing exactly what is expected of them in the short and long term. Essentially, they need to know what you want them to achieve in the immediate future, as well as what you would like them to eventually accomplish in their roles. This will give them a sense of direction and something to work toward.
Find out What They Need
Periodically surveying your employees to learn how satisfied they are with the organization is always a smart idea. It’s easier to give employees what they want—and keep them satisfied in their work—when you know where your organization is lacking. Of course, these surveys should be anonymous. You’re more likely to get honest answers if workers don’t feel they’ll be punished somehow for negative feedback.
You can also ask employees if they feel they have the necessary tools and resources to succeed in their roles. A talented worker can grow very frustrated if a lack of resources is preventing them from realizing their true potential.
Listen to Their Ideas
Very often, a team’s strongest performers aren’t content just to finish their assigned tasks and clock out, ad infinitum. They tend to develop insights, observations, or new ideas that can benefit the whole company.
It’s important that you give your employees opportunities to share their ideas. Of course, it’s also essential that you act on these ideas when it makes sense to do so. An employee who feels like their voice is heard will be more engaged than one who feels ignored or dismissed. Additionally, these insights can give you an important look at your company through the lens of an employee, giving you the chance to make changes in an area where you likely would not have looked.
Bill Malloy 