Recently I was talking with someone about employee retention techniques and how to get people to stay at your organization. At first I gave a rote answer based on my gut, but after thinking on the topic for a while I realized there were some pretty significant pieces to the puzzle. I would hazard to guess that the multitude of options explains why there isn’t a magic bullet for fixing retention problems overnight.
In the video below I talk through some of the key employee retention techniques and give a reminder that not all turnover is bad. In fact, we measure two separate items there: turnover (any staff leaving over time for any reason) and retention (voluntary turnover). Check it out:
Employee retention techniques video
Employee retention video notes
Here’s the short list of important items:
- Respect-for the people and their work
- Fit-culture fit, baby!
- Basics-pay/benefits are a basic must
- Challenge-offer a challenging, growth-oriented environment
- Professional development, or mentoring for higher level-give people something more than a job
- Connect with mission-have a mission worth buying into
- When in doubt, ASKÂ your people what they want from you
- Not all turnover is bad!
- Retention vs. Turnover
Also, please don’t forget that I put together a free guide to employee retention that you can download, print, or share. Lots of great content in there from some excellent professionals in the industry.
What are your employee retention techniques? What has worked for you in the past?
