Employee Retention Strategies

Employee retention strategies help businesses hold on to their most talented and dedicated individuals. At their most fundamental, retention strategies should focus on creating a positive and inclusive work environment, offering competitive salaries and benefits, providing career development opportunities, and offering recognition programs. 

Some of the more specific successful employee retention strategies include: 

• Flexible hours or telecommuting options 
• Comprehensive health benefits, including wellness 
• Performance-based bonuses or raises (for those who exceed expectations and goals) 
• Tuition reimbursement for additional education or training 
• Regularly seeking employee feedback 

By implementing effective employee retention strategies and creating a positive work environment, your business can create a workplace environment where employees feel valued and appreciated – setting them (and the business) up for success now and in the future. 

Employee engagement platforms 

Inspired leaders cultivate inspired teams that are engaged and dedicated to the company’s mission. Trustworthiness, positivity and an understanding of work/life balance are among the top qualities people seek in leadership. 

Employee engagement and company culture 

Engagement and culture are related, but they are not the same thing. Company culture refers to the organization’s overall values, beliefs and norms that drive how they go about business and working together. 

If your company culture does not reflect what really goes on behind the scenes, then engagement will likely be low. It’s important to ensure your company culture is not just written out but truly acted out as well – and that starts with leadership. 

Feedback & recognition 

Simply put, recognition makes employees feel good. It demonstrates that others have noticed their hard work and the effort they put into driving the company’s success. Equally, if not more important is feedback both positive and constructive. When leaders provide thoughtful feedback, they invest in their teammate’s growth. 

Incentives 

Employee incentives are rewards that drive motivation and increase satisfaction and engagement in the workplace. They can be monetary or non-monetary in fashion and are designed to encourage ambitious goal achievement, make deadlines and/or go the extra mile in the workplace. 

Here is a list of incentives that might perform well for your workforce: 

• Financial incentives: These are monetary incentives such as gift cards, profit sharing and bonuses. 
• Rewards programs: This type of incentive usually lives within a platform and enables leaders and peers to give each other recognition for positive work. 
• Points system: Leaders give out points for positive work that can be cashed in for some type of award or prize. 
• Team building activities: This incentive works particularly well for teams as a whole. If the team achieves their goal, they are rewarded with a group activity or outing. 
• Employee perks: This can look like a lot of different things including flexible work hours, additional time off, discounts to local places, or anything that would resonate with your workforce.  

Incentives encourage employees to actively engage in open enrollment by creating excitement and reward. Key advantages of OE incentives include: 

• Generates interest and buzz around open enrollment 
• Rewards employees for participation 
• Motivates learning about benefits offerings 
• Drives specific actions like early enrollment 
• Allows measurement of participation levels 
• Boosts benefits appreciation 

Measurements allow refinement of incentives over time. Track incentive success with metrics like: 

• Increase in employees completing enrollment 
• Higher engagement with specific activities like webinars 
• Uptick in early enrollment completion 
• Percentage of employees referring coworkers 
• Positive feedback in employee surveys 

Measurements allow refinement of incentives over time. 

Thoughtful incentives drive the excitement and engagement critical to open enrollment success. 

Employee engagement activities 

Employee engagement activites are all about bringing the team together and investing in their development and skills. Whether its team –building activities for the group or learning opportunities for individuals, giving employees an activity to be a part of is a great way to increase engagement. 

Other engagement activities include: 

• Work parties or lunches 
• Lunch and learns 
• Town hall meetings with leadership 
• Mentorship programs 
• Volunteer events 

Remote employee engagement 

Many companies have adopted remote and hybrid workspaces in recent years. But how do you keep these employees engaged? When teams aren’t together every day in person, it’s increasingly important to create engagement opportunities to keep motivation and productivity rates high. 

Remote employee engagement ideas: 

• Communication platforms: If your workforce is mostly remote or hybrid, having a communication platform is of the utmost importance. Consider platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams that allow employees to communicate easier and instantly. 
• Project management tool: Collaboration looks very different in remote environments than it does in person. Since your employees can’t simply walk over to a peer’s desk to ask a question, project management tools such as Asana are great for keeping everyone up-to-date and on the same page. 
• Virtual team bonding: Whether it’s a virtual coffee break, lunch or happy hour, provide your remote employees the time and space to connect without it being all about work. 

When you’re in person, it’s easy to pop over to someone’s desk or office to check-in. With remote work, these casual check-ins require more structure. Leaders should schedule regular one-on-one meetings with their employees to continue to foster that important employee-management relationship. 

Gamification 

Employee gamification is the process of applying game-like elements such as points, awards or competition to the workspace to boost engagement levels. 87% of U.S. workers believe gamification would make them more engaged, productive workers, so it’s a great strategy to boost retention. 

Gamification strategies: 

• Building a level progression system 
• Giving out points for achievements 
• Sharing progress bars 
• Creating friendly competitions 
• On-the-spot spontaneous recognition 

Health and benefits 

Engagement activities and perks are nice but mean very little to employees if they feel their health and benefit offerings are lacking. Before looking into any fun outings or team-building opportunities, make sure you have a robust benefits package in place that meets the needs of your unique workforce.  

Gone are the days of simply offering medical, dental and vision. By incorporating voluntary benefits that resonate with employee’s needs, you can create a benefits package that helps you increase engagement as well. These can be tricky to navigate but look to your ben admin provider or broker to help you understand what makes the most sense for you and your team. 

Types of voluntary benefits to consider: 

• Asset protection 
• Disease management 
• Pet insurance 
• Health and wellness 
• Wealth management 
• Lifestyle planning 
• Mental health support