- A new report from culture building engagement organization Achievers found that half of all employees plan to leave their job this year. It's a scary statistic that keeps me up late at night, too.

The fact of the matter is that right now, a lot of employers are focused on hiring, but how often are these same employers focusing on retention once someone starts? Here's the thing. You can be proactive about employee retention, and at the end of the episode, I'll share seven strategies that will help you keep your team intact.

Today, we'll cover modern trends facing the hiring market, what is retention, and why is it often overlooked by employers, and seven great retention strategies for HR teams to use this year. Let's jump right in and get started.

In a past episode of HR Party of One, we introduced a very frightening trend known as the turnover tsunami. The basic beats of the tsunami are simple. Beginning in March 2020, a lot of people clung to jobs that they didn't like because the world was in the middle of a once in a generation pandemic. As a result, many employees decided to wait and find a new job at a different time.

Well, viewers, this is that time. Yes, turnover is natural to a certain extent, because there will always be employees who leave jobs to start new ones. But after a year of unprecedented changes and stress due to COVID-19, turnover may be heightened, especially for women, as employees feel like they can finally make career decisions again.

A recent study from McKinsey even found that one in four women are considering leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers, and there's a very good chance that you have a lot of people on staff right now who are preparing to leave for a new job, or maybe they've started looking. But like I mentioned at the top of the show, you can take steps to avoid this tsunami by implementing retention strategies.

Before I cover what you can do to boost retention, let's first take a step back and talk more broadly about the concept and how it impacts teams. Employee retention refers to an organization's ability to keep its employees. It's usually represented as a percentage that's calculated on an annual basis.

To determine your organization's employee retention rate, divide the number of employees who've been in their position a year by the number of employees in the position a year ago. If a position was added during this year, it would be excluded from the calculation. Believe it or not, retention is actually overlooked by a lot of organizations. Here's why-- outdated performance management tactics. Many employers rely on the antiquated model of annual performance reviews followed by radio silence the rest of the year.

Here's the deal. Employees want feedback. They want to know that they're doing right and how they can improve. Annual reviews just don't get the job done anymore.

When employees don't have this input, they miss out on some pretty important development. They are more likely to become disengaged from their work, their teams, and their manager. The more disengaged they are, the more likely it is that they seek employment elsewhere.

Additionally, these same outdated performance tactics rarely make time for conversations about growth within the company. This obviously hurts retention efforts, because employees are too often left in the dark about opportunities to advance and develop their skills.

Managers unable to recognize disengaged employees. Without frequent touchpoints, it's easy for managers to assume that everything is a-ok for their team. Any seasoned HR pro will tell you that this obviously isn't the case. Disengaged employees typically are less productive, exhibit a negative change in attitude, focus less on job-related matters, express dissatisfaction with their job, and frequently leave early or arrive late. Managers might recognize some of these subtle red flags here and there, but without a more consistent professional relationship, it's easy for these symptoms to go unnoticed. Likewise, it's equally easy for the root cause of these symptoms to go unnoticed.

Poor onboarding strategies. New hire onboarding is an afterthought to a lot of employers. Often, they're so excited to have a fresh face on the staff that they just throw them right into the fire without much of an introduction. Unsurprisingly, this leads to high turnover rates.

All is not lost, though. That's why I'm here to help. I've put together seven great ways for you to rethink and reshape your team's approach to retaining employees. Let's go through each of those right now.

Conduct one-on-one on one meetings. In past episodes, HR Party of One has championed the use of one-on-one meetings instead of annual reviews. During these weekly or biweekly meetings, managers meet with their direct reports to discuss projects, follow up on questions, and run through other topics that need to be covered.

This framework allows for consistent back and forth between the two parties. The result? Ongoing professional development and input. Employees feel more empowered to do their job. They become more effective, and they better understand how their efforts impact the team on a week by week basis.

More engaged employees are more likely to stick around. They understand that they're valued and that their contributions matter. Part of HR's role is to make sure managers are meeting with their direct reports in the way that the organization expects it to be done, because if they're not doing it that way, it can impact employees sticking around. In essence, HR serves as a quality assurance to hold managers accountable.

Providing team members with the right tools to be successful. Different team members need different tools to be effective. Organizations that recognize this and offer flexibility to their employees are often ones that have a better chance at retaining their staff.

For example, when we list openings for our development team, we include language that says that they can use any software that empowers them to do their job well. If you're a developer looking for a new role, this is a really strong incentive.

How about another example? In my first HR Party of One episode, I was pretty frank about our HRIS and how it helped me get up to speed in my new role. Without, it I'd barely be able to keep my head above water.

Two similar things that Bernie Portal recently provided for our employees were physical items like standing desks and better lighting for video calls. Both make life a little bit easier in the office, from being able to stretch your legs to looking a bit sharper on a video call.

Sharing internal success stories. Recognize the people who move up in your organization. It's a big morale booster for the employee who's been elevated, and also indicates to others that they too can elevate their role in this organization. Bernie Portal shares our internal success stories by announcing new promotions in a monthly newsletter that goes out to all employees.

Another example, part of our company's lore is a story that our CEO, Alex, tells about the first people Bernie Portal hired back in the late 2000s. They hosted a barbecue with four new hires the day before their start date. One never showed up on Monday, and two others didn't last much longer. The fourth, he's still with the company and running some of the most important components of the business.

Building culture with a culture guide. Past HR Party of One episodes dig into what a culture guide is and how it works. But for this episode, if you're unfamiliar, a culture guide is an elevated employee handbook that includes everything teammates need to know about how the company works and what it values.

Culture guides are incredible ways to introduce new hires to your company culture. They're also excellent tools to sustain long lasting values. We believe this so much that each of our employees is required to read through the entire culture guide before the first day. Check out Episode 41 in the episode description to learn more about these essential culture building tools.

Organization transparency. Employees value transparency. Glassdoor describes this best as operating in a way that creates openness between managers and employees. When you operate transparently, there's an implicit trust that's communicated to employees. Turns out that people like honesty.

One of the things that impressed me most about Bernie Portal when I first joined was that we provided a monthly financial update to our employees. One of our team members walks us through the goals we set for that month and how much revenue we generated in each component of the business.

I was shocked. This is a pretty unusual practice, but it illustrated a couple of different things for me, first, that Bernie Portal valued that I understood how the company worked and where it stood in meeting the annual goal. Second, it demonstrated the actual impact that employees have on the organization. That matters, and it can go a long way towards boosting retention.

Communicating existing benefits. Employees might not be totally familiar with every benefit your company offers. This offers a great opportunity for you to remind them what's available in their benefits package. Not only will you help your employees make the most of their employer-sponsored benefits, but you're also showing the value that the organization provides to its team.

Building better benefits. Health care costs are rising. For a lot of employees, wages remain stagnant. One of the best ways to retain top performers is to shore up your benefits package. This could include anything from adding options for pet insurance to taking a parental leave policy in house, which is what we added for our employees in 2020.

One note, you want to make sure that your benefits package fits what your employees want and need. For example, if you employ a lot of employees who are closer to retirement age, maybe look into a more robust 401(k) match. For younger employees, you might consider adding a child care benefit. My recommendation? Work with your trusted benefits broker to optimize your best it offerings ahead of open enrollment this year.

OK, take a deep breath with me. Phew.

We just covered a lot of great ways to improve your attention strategy through the rest of the year. I encourage you to take a look at your current approach to retention and identify changes that you can make. Be proactive. Review the previous section. I'm certain there are some tactics in there that you aren't using.

I'm also certain that once you take a new approach to retaining employees, your turnover rate will go down and you can weather this current tsunami and any others that might hit us in the future. Remember, your job is as strategic as you make it.

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