Following on from our earlier post How to Recruit and Retain the Best Talent - Recruitment, we follow Recruitment with Retention:

According to the Sunday Times, the first Monday back to work after new year's day, is the most popular day of the year for individuals to start looking for a new career. With 35% citing factors including looking for greater job satisfaction, and 31% being motivated to increase their earning potential.

Over the last few years’, many organisations and Contact Centres have been able to switch their focus away from employee retention.

With less companies hiring, and a limited number of roles on offer, many employees chose to play safe and settle in to their current role, putting off potential salary negotiations and holding back career aspirations, but now that the recruitment market is almost back to pre-recession levels and predicted to further grow throughout 2014, retention is sure to be a hot topic and will, once again be a high priority for your business, if you want to retain your talent over the next few years.

So what makes a good retention strategy?

Having a retention strategy is a good start, as according to some research less than 50% of businesses have a formal retention strategy.  Do you?

Developing and having great leaders and managers must also be a high priority; In this article 'Lack of staff motivation and respect hampers UK bu... and following research in conjunction with the ICM, People 1st state that, 1 in 4 British employees (27%), don't respect their manager and 48% are not motivated by them  and there are many other studies and articles which cite even higher numbers.

For those who do have a retention strategy in place, and going back to the Call Centre Expo panel session; when asked, many of the audience were still relying on salary and benefits as the jewel in the crown of how to recruit and retain talent.   Whilst these factors are certainly very important for potential candidates in selecting and staying with an organisation, they certainly are not the most important element if you wish to unlock and engage their hearts and minds.

In this article; ‘How to Create a Winning Retention Strategy’, Entreprueneur.com states that there are 4 key objectives to truly developing a robust and successful retention strategy:

• Performance, - There is nothing more powerful than someone working towards a goal! Setting and assessing your employees against measurable objectives helps give them a sense of achievement.  An individual is also less likely to consider leaving when they are part way through working towards a key goal, or milestone.

• Communication – A lack of good, regular and quality communication within an organisation, or, from a more senior individual, will often be enough for an employee to be tempted by a head-hunters call. How do you share information, conduct meetings and 121’s, do you collaborate with and listen to your employees?  If your employee feels valued and respected, this could make all the difference when considering other opportunities.

• Loyalty - No matter how loyal your employees previously were in other roles, loyalty has to be earned and cannot be bought.  Loyalty is driven by respect, trust and commitment forged over time.

• Competitive Advantage – Everyone wants to be a winner! Knowing what you and your team, or, business are doing to be better than the rest, or, what sets you apart, just might  encourage your current employee to keep your competitors and their recruitment partners at arm’s length when they come calling!

Do you have any other ideas on Employee Retention, or, are you planning to start developing your retention strategy based on the increases in recruitment and talent acquisition over the next few years, please do comment here and let us know.