By: Chris Bourne, Head of Marketing at Natural HR

What are the most valuable elements of a company? For many, the answer to that question is simple, it’s the employees of the company. But with that, one of the biggest challenges facing HR teams is in attracting and retaining talent, something which in the world of HR is referred to as ‘Employee Retention.’

From a technical standpoint, employee retention refers to an organisation’s ability to keep its employees. Employee retention rate, which is the formula used to calculate the rate, can be attained by dividing the number of employees who have been in their position a year by the number of employees in the position a year ago.  If a position was added during the year, it would be excluded from the calculation.

But why is employee retention an important topic? To put it in perspective, a recent survey found that when discussing retainment:

• 58% of employees are leaving due to a lack of opportunities or challenges in their current position.
• Only 39% of employers were planning to have regular conversations about career opportunities with their staff.
• 89% of employees are tracking employee sentiment through at least 2 staff surveys every year.

When looking at employee retention strategies, and how you can retain your top talent you should remember that these solutions won’t break the bank to implement, but at the same time, will only be effective if everybody is on board.

In this article, we’re going to look at nine methods you can implement in your business to ensure that you retain your company’s top talent in 2022 and beyond. So, what are the 9 ways you can attract (and keep) your top talent in 2022?

1. Understanding your younger workforce:

Over time, more of your workforce will be made up of younger workers, and by learning and engaging with their working style and career values, you’ll be able to create a workplace that keeps those employees engaged and happy with your business.

For instance, online research has suggested that younger workers consider work-life balance as one of the major factors of employment. So, by ensuring you understand that, and you reflect it in your workplace, you will ensure you build a culture that retains younger staff.

2. Invest in your employer branding:

Did you know that LinkedIn found that over 75% of job seekers research employer brand and reputation before they apply through sites like Glassdoor or Facebook? Businesses plagued with a bad reputation will find it hard to attract new talents and retain hired ones if the branding of the company is considered negative.

In fact, branding is more important than money! In the same survey, 50% said that they wouldn’t work for a company that has a bad reputation—even if they’ll receive a higher salary!

3. Understand that candidate experience plays an important factor:

Candidate experience, as we explored last week, pertains to the total perception of a candidate about an organisation’s recruitment process. This key candidate element is now increasingly being used by companies in their recruitment practice, and even plays into the previous point of employer branding.

Candidate experience combines several aspects. These include candidate attitude, behaviour, and feeling during the hiring process towards the company, and again, a poor hiring experience will result in adverse outcomes for the company, including not securing the top talent in the first place.

4. Smart onboarding:

Talking of candidate experience, on their first day, your new hires should be set for smart onboarding. Make sure that you aren’t just teaching the new hire about their job, but you’re also mentioning how they can thrive every single day and grow within the brand.

You’ll also want to ensure that they have every opportunity to talk with you about questions or issues they have. For many employees, a job is not just about a pay-cheque anymore, it’s about development and without that, you could lose top staff to competitors who offer that growth.

5. From day 1, make sure you’re hiring right:

This may shock you but did you know that Glassdoor reported that 35%of employers who hire new employees do so expecting that more employees will quit in the year. So, you need to put in checks to stop this, including making sure that you are hiring the right employees.

Don’t oversell the role from day one, and instead be honest about what you expect from the new hire, what they can expect from you and what opportunities are there for them. Just because you are desperate to fill an empty position, don’t lie or bend the truth, being transparent is crucial in finding the right employee for your company and ensuring your hire the top talent!

6. Make the most of your data:

Using your recruitment and company data will be one of the most powerful tools you have, as HR analytics will enable you to gain insights into which areas of their recruitment strategies function well, as well as what areas could see improvement.

It also allows you to discover how to increase retention, monitor the skills gap, increase effective workforce planning and more general assessment and engagement of your workforce.

7. Invest in HR automation:

An increasing number of firms are using AI and automation within their recruitment processes, with these technologies allowing teams to find, attract, engage, nurture, and convert candidates to become applicants.

By automating the hiring process, these tools help streamline recruitment, making it more efficient and faster. But it will also allow you to effectively manage the process from one location, ensuring that your process is more effective, allowing you to identify, communicate, and secure the best talent.

8. Make sure you have modern benefits:

Simply put, companies are adjusting their compensation and benefits packages to be more attractive to the modern worker. Instead of office-based perks like free snacks or exercise sessions, employees nowadays, in the world of COVID-19, are looking for substantive benefits like healthcare, improved statutory pay, and benefits to support major life events, like marriage, raising a child, and dealing with loss.

HR professionals and recruitment specialists can use these modernised benefits to improve employee retention. Comprehensive benefits can also give companies a competitive edge in hiring the talent they need.

9. Provide the employees with the tools to stay:

Reinvent communication and engagement in your company with robust tools so that employee retention comes more naturally as an employee-first mentality is woven into your company culture. This will then allow you to focus on more strategic initiatives, for example, employee engagement, employee experience, morale boosts, and so on.

The most common tasks you can undertake to achieve this include surveys, suggestion boxes, live polls, newsletters, company updates, employee recognition as well as accessible HR resources.

About Author:

Chris Bourne is the Head of Marketing at Natural HR, a cloud-based HR software company for growing businesses with 100+ employees. Since launching in 2010, we’ve been building a comprehensive suite of HR functionality that equips the small to medium-sized enterprise with everything needed to build an effective and efficient HR operation.