By Devon Beck
St. Patrick’s Day is known for leprechauns, the color green, and celebration. It is also associated with luck. Some employers may feel like they’ve lucked out with their employees and notice a strong, happy workforce. Other employers may have had trouble retaining employees or keeping them happy. While it might seem it comes down to luck on who you hire, getting to the pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow isn’t all luck. Learning how to retain employees and keep them happy will ensure a strong workforce without high employee turnover. Retaining employees also helps with customer satisfaction, sales, and happy co-workers.
While exit interviews are an important aspect of any business, “stay interviews” are also important. Asking current employees why they continue working for you and learning about their thoughts will help you better understand what’s important to employees as well as things you could change. Questions about why they chose to work here and what would make them leave could help you better understand your employees and your company.
Everyone loves perks and often it’s the little things that count. Supplying the office with snacks or a lunch once a week reminds employees they you’re thinking about them. Offering services like dry-cleaning pick-up can also help employees manage their time, making their life a little easier.
Recognize employee’s talents and skills and let them contribute these to the company. It may not be in the area of their job, but it will make them feel like an important aspect of the company while doing something they enjoy. Along with this, encouraging employee progress is important. Allowing employees to learn a new job skill, or go through new training can also help employee retention.
Employees also want to feel good about where they work. Ensuring happiness at the workplace will help retain employees. This can be accomplished many different ways. One way is to ensure there is open communication in the workplace. Employees would rather know what’s going on with the company first-hand rather than them hearing it somewhere else. Also, if employees know their voice matters and feel free to speak their mind, they will feel important and useful to the company.
Recognizing employee’s success, offering contests and awards, and encouraging employees to collaborate are all others ways to promote a thriving workplace with happy employees. Learning to retain employees and make them happy are steps to a stronger workforce. Using these tips, that pot of gold might not seem so far off after all.