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Latest News

BBB Business Tip: How to inspire, measure and improve employee retention

By Better Business Bureau. May 5, 2022.

(Getty Images)

In today's current economy, we at the BBB understand just how challenging employee retention can be. It takes a lot of hard work, strategy, and dedication to ensure your employees are happy, healthy, and ready to hit the ground running each day. 

However, with some guidance and a few simple tricks up your sleeve, you can inspire, measure, and improve employee retention and ensure your team is as strong as ever. 

What does it mean to inspire employee retention?

Employee retention is essentially the act of keeping a current employee happy and content with their job. The goal is to make your employees want to come to work every day, knowing they're appreciated and valued.

As a business owner, it's essential to inspire your employees to stay. To inspire employee retention, you need to demonstrate to your team that your company is a place where they're valued and respected. This shows them that you care about their well-being and have faith in their abilities. It also demonstrates that you recognize the hard work they do every day and that you're committed to seeing it through to the end. 

Great employees want to work for companies that inspire employee retention, so it pays off to invest in this area. 

How can you measure employee retention?

Measuring employee retention is a great way to ensure you're on the right track. You can use metrics like employee turnover to gauge your success or employee retention rate, which measures the percentage of employees who are still with your company at a specific point in time.

In most cases, it's easiest to measure employee retention by tracking your employee retention rate. This number can be determined by taking the total number of employees you have at a given moment and the total number of original employees you had, say, at the start of the quarter. You then multiply that number by 100 to get your percentage rate.

This will help you see how effective your retention strategies are. If your percentages are high, you're doing an excellent job of inspiring employee retention. If your numbers are low, you may want to invest in employee retention strategies like onboarding programs, team-building events, and professional development workshops to help increase your retention rate.  

3 tips to improve employee retention in your workplace

When it comes to employee retention, the most important thing you can do is give people the tools to succeed. This means creating a supportive company culture and a positive work environment. But it doesn’t stop there. You have to look at the big picture and do more to keep your employees happy and engaged.

1. Encourage a healthy work-life balance

One of the biggest reasons people leave their jobs is because they don’t have a healthy work-life balance. A Pew Research Center survey showed that some of the top reasons people chose to quit their career in 2021 were due to feeling disrespected at work (57%), lack of work flexibility (45%), and working too many hours (39%).

Work-life balance is all about creating a balance between your professional and personal life. This means setting aside time in your schedule to be with your family and friends and carving out time to do things that are important to you outside of work.           

This also means being honest with your team about how much time they’re expected to put in at work. Make sure you’re giving them the right number of hours needed to be successful, but also enough hours to pursue their personal interests and find some time to relax. 

2. Improve communication 

Another common reason people leave their job is that they feel like they aren’t being heard. This is a huge issue in today’s workplace, where it seems like open communication is one of the biggest struggles. But the truth is, if you want to improve communication with your employees, you must make an effort.            

Your employees need to feel like they can come to you with their concerns and questions. It's also essential that you're available to listen when they do. This creates a culture of openness, which is a huge driver in employee retention. 

3. Provide employees with the support they need

In today's fast-paced and ever-changing workplace, employees need support more than ever. This means creating a culture where your employees are supported in their personal and professional lives. It also means providing them with the training they need to be successful and the tools they need to do their job well.  

Employees will feel motivated and engaged when they feel like their concerns and questions are being heard and addressed. This, in turn, will increase their productivity and performance, which will provide you with the results you're looking for.                

Get more employee retention tips and tricks from the BBB

The best way to get more employee retention tips and tricks is to continue learning and experimenting. The best way to learn is to ask questions and seek out advice from other experts in the field. The BBB is a great place to learn from other business owners and industry experts. 

Looking for additional suggestions on improving employee retention? Then check out the BBB business news feed and our BBB HQ for more excellent tips!

BBB of Southern Piedmont and Western N.C. contributed to this article.