Top employee retention strategies for 2021

70% of organizations report that recruitment and training of replacement employees and overtime work of existing employees have a negative financial impact on their business until the organization can fill the vacancy.  All these things are considered and estimated that a lost employee can cost an average of 6 to 9 months of that employee’s salary.  Employee retention strategies are needed.


Employee turnover and staff retention is a major problem and there are many factors at work, including generational factors, the economy, widespread changes in workplaces, and more. Learning some of the following actionable employee retention strategies below will help reduce employee turnover while retaining the talent needed to run a company.


But first, let’s introduce a few retention strategies with the most important principle of all. To retain and engage your employees, you must really care about them.  No strategy will overcome your lack of empathy or appreciation for your employees.

Defining Employee Retention?

Creating the right employee retention strategies for a company requires understanding what employee retention is.  Employee retention is an effort made by a company to retain employees in the enterprise.  Employee retention can be explained very easily as efforts to retain employees.  It all starts with hiring the right people for the organization and continues after the exit interview.  Employee retention includes creating a working environment, creating the right company policy, creating a vision for the company, rewarding the right employees, etc.


Building a successful business is hard, but losing the company keeps losing the workforce.  If an employee leaves a company, they take not only their experience, their training, and talents but also their ideas, accumulated organizational knowledge, and sometimes customers.  Therefore, it is important for every company to promote a good working environment and give a fair salary.

Why does employee retention matter?

1. A productive employee who leaves the company hurts the business.

2. According to a CAP study, it costs up to 9 months of an employee’s salary to replace them and consider the time and resources it takes to interview and hire a replacement.

3. Leaving employees can also have a negative impact on the culture of peers in the company.

4. People notice whenever a co-worker walks out the door.  Apart from this, it may also come to the mind of some people whether they should also start looking for a new job.


Some employee retention strategies for 2021:

The list of detailed strategies designed to improve employee retention includes the following:

1 Provide More Positive Feedback

Everyone knows that employees need feedback, both positive and constructive advice, to improve and do their best work, but in what proportion.  A Harvard Business Review study found that the ideal ratio between positive and negative suggestions is 5.6 positive to 1 corrective.


Positive feedback is often required to help motivate employees and give them the necessary determination to do their best work.  But all of this also calls for constructive and corrective feedback, when there is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed early on.


As you move forward, become more aware of how many negative comments you are making in relation to positive comments from your employees.  For each negative comment, the ratio can be moved to six positive comments.

2 Investing in employee growth

Employees tend to overlook the relatively low wages of doing the job, which gives them room to grow.  All this is not to promote low pay, but to convey the importance of creating professional training opportunities for its employees.


Show your employees that you have their professional interests in mind.  You can create an internal training program or take advantage of external learning opportunities.


People always love to receive, and your employees are no different.  You can promote the career growth of your employees by providing them with corporate training.  This makes them see you as a partner they can trust compared to a demanding boss they can’t wait to leave.

3 Creating a healthy environment

Having a healthy working environment is a very basic requirement for any employee.  If the employee does not get a good working environment then all other efforts go in vain.  Similarly, having the right lighting, the office should not be too loud, the chair and table should be comfortable and more.  Along with this, the environment also needs to be positive, accepting, and challenging.  You cannot expect employees to give their best in an environment that creates negativity or toxicity.


This is even worse because if your team needs to do creative work, and at the same time, it is difficult to present ideas in an unhealthy environment.  This is one of the essential basic employee retention strategies that must be focused on.  So to keep your employees regular one must give a healthy environment for them to work.  You can try some easy ways to do this, for this, build trust among the employees.  Have a face-to-face conversation with your employees and offer incentives you can to challenge them.

4 Starting mentor program

Another employee retention strategy involves introducing a mentoring program.  A mentor program provides mentors to someone below you.  This being a good onboarding idea it can help increase employee retention in a company.


This can help them develop faster for employees to have someone to look up to and someone to guide them.  In addition, someone providing their knowledge will make the mentor feel honored.  This innovative employee retention strategy should be adopted by every company.


Before starting a mentor program, it is important to get the right people together.  They should not have conflicting personalities.  In addition, the mentor and mentor should not have too many experience gaps as the advisor may become overwhelmed and may not be able to benefit from the program.  Among other things, the mentor and the mentee should be at the same place of work.

5 Encourage employee creativity

Some companies say that they value the creativity of employees.  But they do not necessarily have any initiatives or policies in place to support it.  Google conducts 20% programs that give their employees the opportunity to work on side projects that interest them.


Hongqiao freelance blogger Michael Poh explains some steps you can take to encourage creativity in the workplace:

Awarding of prizes.

If you’re going to encourage suggestions for employees, take them seriously.  You can encourage and identify employees who make tangible contributions.

Providing an outlet.

Almost all employees do not want to be nominated or recognized for their ideas.  Managers need to create opportunities for both public and private contribution or feedback.

Establishing innovation teams.

These are different teams that are tasked with coming up with ideas on a specific topic.  Second, can demonstrate the value you place on creativity and encourage risk-taking.

Hire different types of people.

Creativity will not come from a group of people who all think alike.

Have fun

Create a positive work environment where creativity and spontaneity can take place.

Your move

You can provide your employees with 30 minutes of creative time each week to brainstorm ideas or work on projects that interest them.

6 Provide flexible work arrangements

In 2019, FlexJobs said in its annual survey that 80% of 7300 employees would be those who would be more loyal to their employers if they had flexible work options.  The same study found that working remotely full-time was the best-case scenario for respondents, who polled 76 percent.


Flexible scheduling, part-time scheduling, and working remotely part-time lag behind in the order of 72, 46, and 43 percent.  Flexible work schedules boost workforce productivity by reducing burnout.


When staff members are better in control of their time, they allocate their best time to work.  This makes employees feel less stressed and more empowered.  He brings more joy to work and ultimately manifests in high-quality work which is the essence of business.

7 Give Your Employees the Opportunity to Grow

Some companies promote people outside the organization and do not offer ongoing training and education for their employees.  Because there is no way to move forward or improve, employees become disenchanted with their roles, and their chances of survival are reduced.


According to Per Sharon Florentine at CIO, the organization’s ongoing education makes employees feel valued and helps them look ahead. When there is a clearly defined path for their advancement, your workforce will feel that employees are an important part of the company’s success.


You can create a powerful incentive for your team members to stay longer by promoting and implementing from within your training program, or by taking advantage of external resources and tools such as workshops, books, online courses, and videos, etc. Thereby employees see these initiatives as investments in their future.

8 Earn Your Employees’ Trust

Employees perform better when they have confidence in management and the people entrusting them with tasks.  When employees trust the person who motivates them to work, it is more likely for them to achieve the goals set for them.


46% of employees have reported that lack of transparent leadership communication is driving them to look for new jobs. Meanwhile, 79% of highly engaged employees have good faith in their leaders. You too have a good chance of starting an employee engagement program.  


If you want to build more trust with your employees, it requires building personal connections, emphasizing honesty and transparency, motivating team members, giving credit and blame, avoiding favoritism, and demonstrating competence in your work.  to perform etc.  You can aim to get to know each employee a little better.  Start having open-ended conversations with them and make them feel welcome and free to discuss what’s on their mind.

9 Awards and Recognition

When your team performs well or when an employee does something commendable, you can reward them.  This is an important part of employee retention strategies which should be a part of your employee retention strategies.  It is also important for you to ensure that the employee or team is recognized and rewarded.  


The verbal validation an employee can appreciate during any team meeting.  But giving a special bonus or gift hamper can be a solid way to recognize him.  Which approach is best for you and your team depends on the situation.


If an employee completes 10 years in the company, a simple pat on the back may not be enough.  Also, a simple gift hamper or bonus makes them look good and also works to encourage other employees to stay with the company longer.

10 Encourage a healthy work-life balance

Many organizations have high expectations from their employees.  For workers, it can be difficult to devote less time to personal care, leisure activities, and family.


The OECD found in one of its studies that approximately 12% of workers in the United States work very long hours.  That’s a little less than the average 13%, but full-time workers in the US devote only 60%, or 14.5 hours, of their day to personal care and leisure, much less than the average 15 hours.


Resting team members means they will be able to perform better at work with enough time to take care of themselves and their families. Having regular work hours, weekend work policies, or work-from-home schedules can provide flexibility to your team members.  Thereby requiring them to do their best to work every single day.


In this way, you can also identify such people in the company who have done more work this week.  Give them some time, or take everyone out for a walk from the office and evaluate together how your work scheduling can lead to a healthy work-life balance.


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You’ve gone through all of the above, so instead of trying to effect change at a fundamental level, why not start working on these strategies?  You can start with something that you know and that needs to be addressed in your company as soon as possible.  Don’t put it off and start the week in action, putting your newfound knowledge to good use together.