10 ways to retain your top talent in the workplace

If you landed here, you too are looking to solve this messy challenge – Retaining top talent has become much more difficult. Employees seem to be disengaged and burnout is more common than ever. It is also harder to maintain a sense of belonging to a culture.

With an employee turnover of 17% as reported across the IT industry, It is very important for organizations to sharpen their focus on employee retention strategies.

Bring out the ‘Human’ in Human Resources to retain talent

Listening to employees can be a great way to retain talent. It is vital for retention. Every person is different. It would help if you tried to get to know your people’s goals and motivations. Also, understand their fears and potential roadblocks to success. Please have deep conversations with people about these topics and assure them they have a future in the organization. If people feel understood, they are more likely to talk about their difficulties, which can lead to career discussions that will motivate them to perform better in the talent pool.

Promote Flexibility at Work

People these days are looking for flexibility in job opportunities and hours. The days of having restrictions on your work schedule are no longer viable to attract the right talent. Instead, flexible work options have proven to be much more effective by allowing employees more time to focus on greater productivity while working when they feel most comfortable and efficient. Give your employees the freedom they desire, and you will most likely keep them around longer and receive a more significant impact in return as they’ll be less stressed with their work-life balance.

Hyper-personalize Growth Opportunities  

By doing your best to invest in your employees, you are making sure that they feel valued. By creating career opportunities that suit various interests, you can ensure that individuals don’t get bored and feel the need to move on. In an enterprise where meritocracy prevails, promotion from within is highly coveted by everyone, letting people gain knowledge and skills across the organization. You should probably consider supporting all learning mechanisms, including corporate education programs, self-study via online tutorials, or articles on your intranet. Assess the skill gap and find a way to monitor your employees.  The Yaksha platform helps you to streamline your hiring processes and provides customized assessments for every stage of your team’s development.

Self-organizing initiatives and events for employees to share their expertise and create new value within their scope of work! Encouragement questions, stretch assignments in addition to innovation initiatives are some ways that show investment in those who work directly with you.

Initiate an attractive program for recent college grads

An alarming 77% of students leave their first jobs within a year. Tech companies are creating and implementing programs to foster student talent to alleviate this issue and add them into talent pool. Some organizations employ students as interns to allow them to experience different departments at a company before deciding which one they’d like to focus their attention on long-term. Other companies offer recent graduates, immersive programs that allow them to enhance their business skills and learn how best to lead others in the business world with their newfound knowledge.

Prepare a strategic solution for retention.

An aligned talent strategy to the business will consolidate and direct retention efforts. Senior managers must be just as committed to retention as individual employees. Setting a tone from the top and modelling behaviour that shows the value of each person in the organization is essential. Managers should include retention stats with other business metrics. Also, celebrate tenure with personal stories highlighting employees’ career progress and showing the rest of the company what they can accomplish.

Recognise and Reward Top Talent

Employees thrive when they feel appreciated. Whether a job is well done or a simple thank you, appreciating employees’ work helps them feel more valued and will often keep them working for your team for longer. Employers who regularly acknowledge their employees help encourage conversations about how employees can do even better next time or add valuable skills to the company’s skill set. Recognizing people’s strengths allows managers to consider what roles certain employees would play in helping meet the company’s goals.

Yaksha’s codathons let you identify not just tech experts but also problem-solvers. They also help you identify the potential of your employees and plan better for project deployment.

Streamline Your Onboarding Process

A positive onboarding experience can give your employees an early appreciation for your company’s operations, allowing you to develop organizational loyalty from day one. Onboarding has been shown to enhance retention rates by more than 70% and reduce new employee turnover.

After hiring a new employee, it’s not over yet. They need to be well-trained to perform their job effectively and efficiently. Creating and maintaining a perfect training program for your new employees is essential to getting them up to speed correctly. Training should address any issues that may arise during a project and prepare the people who use them how to perform efficiently in their job roles.

A training needs and skill gaps analysis using role based assessments will help you plan personalized learning journeys as a part of the onboarding process.

Train Great Managers

People leave managers, not companies is a saying widely known to those in the workforce and among business owners trying to retain talent. You must focus on developing your people, talent pool and thus emphasizing training new managers; you must also provide proven systems of encouragement. It will help your company empower its existing (and future) managers to better cope with the added responsibility when accepting a management position. It is essential for top performers who are entrusted with more responsibilities by their supervisors and can ultimately quit if there aren’t any systems within the organization explicitly designed to give them strong guidance when handling such responsibilities.

Pay Attention To Bonuses & Perks

People love perks. It can help motivate employees to stay. Flexible work schedules, parental leave, sick leave and remote work have become expectations. Your policies and practices should keep up. People are increasingly looking for wellness programs that emphasize stress management and fitness, as well as any other program that encourages a healthy balance in work and home lives. You can increase employee engagement by listening to their needs and expectations.

Use technology for ‘humans’

The technology that you use to engage with your employees – ATS, HRMS, Learning Experience Platform, or others, make sure the experiences are designed keeping your employees at the center. 

Employees are vital to contributing to a company’s bottom line. Today, employees in the tech sector are highly sought after and valued! As an employer, it is important to keep your employees happy and engaged so that they stay with your organization creating long-term value. Have a clear picture of what each member of your team can bring to the table, and where their individual talents lie. Based on their personalities and skill sets, it is possible that they will be able to learn even more quickly if they focus on specific fields that they’re already familiar with or excited about learning or developing.