The past year and a half has brought about significant changes in the way the world operates. Because of the pandemic, many businesses had to lay off or terminate employees. Forced shutdowns required scaling back in so many ways.
Now, however, employers are looking to rehire as the world rebounds and finding it’s not as easy as they might have expected.
Even though unemployment is high, there are many unfilled positions.
Rather than returning to work on terms they don’t prefer, many people are deciding to leave their current positions or stay out of the workforce.
It’s creating a challenge for employees who are looking to hire and also maintain the people they have. Surveys have been showing that employees are more likely than ever to leave their job right now.
With those things in mind, the following are tips for employee retention in the unusual time that is 2021.
Take advantage of Artificial Intelligence
Employee retention with AI is no longer a concept of the future or just something for businesses with massive budgets. It’s a realistic way for even relatively small companies to focus on retention.
With the cost of losing an employee coming in at more than $5,000, the investment for AI will probably pay for itself many times over pretty fast.
With AI, you can access analytics that will predict who is most likely to stay with you long-term and also succeed in doing so.
Look for tools that will assess the personality traits of your current top-performing employees. You can then compare new applicants against those profiles.
Collect and actually use feedback
A lot of times, business leaders will collect feedback but ultimately do nothing with it. While collecting it is a step in the right direction, you should use that feedback because it’s going to give you some of the most direct and actionable insight on how to keep your best employees around for the longhaul.
You can seek feedback on how to improve your corporate culture, how to make employees feel safe in times of uncertainty like what we faced with the pandemic, and how they feel about remote work opportunities.
Other areas to think about when you gather feedback include how to improve inclusion and diversion and how to improve the overall employee experience.
The information is right there for you to gather, and it’s an inexpensive way to delve into what could be core problems in your business, so you should be using it.
Understand your role in work-life balance
The pandemic in some ways afforded unprecedented flexibility because of work-from-home situations that didn’t necessarily create work-life balance. In fact, for some employees, things went in the opposite direction and they are less satisfied.
The remote work shift came out of nowhere for many employers, and many didn’t take the time to figure out the best ways to implement it, mainly because they didn’t have that luxury.
There weren’t guidelines that employees could follow to make sure that they didn’t feel like they always had to be available just because they were working remotely.
Now is a time, if you want to retain and also attract talent, that you start to be more strategic in the promotion of work-life balance and how you implement remote work.
Do what you can as far as salary and benefits
It’s not always the easiest thing to do, but the investment can be well worth it if you increase your salary and benefits offerings. Right now, the country is in the midst of a period of significant inflation, and many employers realize they have to pay more if they’re going to remain competitive as far as their talent.
Value your employees
Employees are not afraid to job hop. There are many opportunities out there for them, and they don’t have to work in a traditional environment. They can take on gig and freelance work, and they have options at their fingertips.
You have to value them in terms of praise, recognition, and providing them with opportunities for advancement.
Be transparent, publicly recognize your employees when they work hard or perform well and simply appreciate what your employees are doing.
Also, as was touched on above, ask them for their opinions and actually use what they say.
The pandemic changed the workplace, and if you make it an opportunity, you can find ways to keep your talent and also be an appealing employer brand into the future based on what you learned over the past year and also what you learn now.
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