What is retention? To retain is to keep in use or possession. Retaining your employees means keeping them in your pay or at your service. Employee retention does not just mean having your employees work for you, it involves holding on to your employees securely in such a way that they are unwilling to leave your establishment. It is a free world where you cannot hold onto an employee against his or her wish.

But there are certain things you could do to hold on to your employees and have them cling to you as well. Employee retention goes both ways you hold on to them and they hold on to your organisation. This does not just happen. It takes a lot of work from both parties. This article focuses on what employers need to do to retain or hold fast to worthy employees.

There are always thousands of people looking for a job. Why do you have to go the extra mile to retain your employees? Here are a few reasons why you should.

Why Retain your Employee?

Employee retention is important because it helps to build trust with your customers. Over time, clients come to trust the names and faces they always see or meet at your organisation. Always having new employees makes it difficult if not impossible to establish trust with your organisation. Asides from retaining your employees, there are other ways to build trust with your customers. 

• Retaining your employees creates a sense of commitment with employees. When people are committed, they put in their best. This means that your employees will constantly be rooting for your organisation.

• Employee retention also means that you have engaged employees and engaged employees are optimally productive. The benefits of having engaged employees are numerous. (How to increase employee engagement).

• Retaining your employees also saves you the time and stress of constantly recruiting new employees. It also saves you money spent on training new staff.

• When you have a high employee retention rate it means you do not have to suffer the effects of a high employee turnover rate.

• Retaining an employee is not just about keeping the person, you also get to retain their acquired knowledge, skills and experiences.

Much as you love to retain your employees, you sometimes need to let go of undeserving individuals who no longer fit in your company. We have you covered for times when you need to fire your employees. (How to tell an employee they are fired.)

How to Retain your Employees

1. Create a friendly work environment. This is the first step to keeping your employees.

2. Have a good salary structure in place. What do you pay your employees? Is it competitive? Can it be compared to what is obtainable in other organisations in your niche?

3. Reward hard work and give credit. Appreciation goes a long way in creating a sense of loyalty between your employees and you. A great way to appreciate your employees is to send a 'thank you sms'. You can do this using SmartSMSSolutions bulk messaging service. It's reliable and affordable.

4. Provide training and mentorship programs for your employees. This should not be a one-time thing, make it regular. It would help your employees to grow and improve themselves.

5. Create a reward for long-term service.

6. Treat your employees like humans do not be one of those bosses that engage in modern-day slavery.

7. Create flexible work schedules. Having a flexible work schedule is beneficial to you the employer and your employees

8. Allow employees to take breaks when there is a need such as extended animal or maternal leave and be sure to make it a paid leave especially if you can afford it.

All of the steps mentioned above go a long way in ensuring employee retention. As an employer, ask yourself, is my organisation one that people of high value would like to be retained in? Do an honest comparison of your organisation and that of your competitors and then go ahead to fix what needs fixing.

Let your employees know you appreciate their hard work and services by sending them a text message. Use SmartSMSSolutions bulk messaging service to send messages of appreciation or other forms of notification to your employees. Register with us for a free bulk SMS account.