Employee happiness and satisfaction has morphed from a soft issue for most results-focused businesses into a fundamental factor for all. Various studies have revealed the importance of businesses retaining their employees, with statistics showcasing the cost to replace an employee as well as the general disgruntlement with peoples’ work life. To make matters worse, in many emerging and ever-evolving markets, massive levels of competition have made it even easier for employees to jump ship and find opportunities elsewhere.
Competitive Industries
With technology helping democratize not just certain business sectors, which in this case include trading, investments and technologies surrounding them, but also self-teaching and training via the variety of resources available online, people are more likely to make the leap into new sectors. These previously non-existent industries offer new and exciting jobs, with companies within these industries are willing to poach professionals from other areas in order to bolster their business with experienced minds.
This is particularly true in the exciting new world of fintech. At its core, fintech is one of the most forward-thinking industries right now, with its aims of improving and automating financial services spurring innovations to enhance business practices. Fintech companies are constantly looking to make improvements by finding new angles in the world of finance, making them very open to bringing in a new way of thinking via employees from other lines of work. So, when one of your employees catches wind of this new challenge and decides to do a quick search of ‘what is fintech,’ they’ll be able to discover everything they need to know about aspects like fintech revolution and cryptocurrencies as well as the many opportunities on offer.
With competition, the need to keep employees happy has increased, with many studies finding that people are more than willing to move on if their expectations of nurturing aren’t met. It’s been found that over three-quarters of millennials are willing to leave their jobs if they feel underappreciated.
Appreciation is a major factor for most employees, with 79 percent who quit their jobs claiming that the major reason is a lack of appreciation. It was also found that vast majority of employees (82 percent) feel as though their supervisor doesn’t recognize them for what they do in their role.
While the last generation of workers would be more willing to simply get on with work regardless of whether or not they were being appreciated, the new generation increasingly needs to be nurtured. Luckily, there’s a new ethos moving through the world of business, following in the footsteps of billionaire Richard Branson: “customers come second, employees first.”
However, transforming or even adjusting your business’ practices to being more nurturing of your employees to improve retention rates can be easier said than done. Much of this responsibility falls on the human resources department being able to support the leaders of the business at the ground level. So, it’s important that you understand the importance of keeping employees happy and understanding that it is very easy to lose an employee these days.
Ease of access and increased competition
Gone are the days of newspaper job advertisements and people being mostly limited to local businesses or those that are down a convenient train line: the internet has made it possible for anyone to quickly and easily find a new job. Moreover, the internet has also increased the viability of remote work, which makes switching employers even easier. With the internet at hand, it’s very easy for someone leave if they don’t feel like they’re being nurtured in their current role.
From there, they’ll likely be able to find a plethora of jobs that they may find interesting and more appealing than their current line of work – especially if they feel underappreciated. So, how do you stop your employees from performing that Google search and uncovering potentially enticing opportunities in pastures new?
An ‘employees first’ approach
One of the most important elements to introduce to help to retain your employees is providing them with features that they feel should be a core part of the job. When it comes to the modern workforce, many believe that flexibility is an integral part of a job.
It was found that if your business wants to attract the best people in the first place, you need to give employees extra flexibility, as Bill Gates points out. Naturally, this is something that the higher-ups would need to strategize and implement, but your human resources department can get the ball rolling by talking to the employees, seeing if they’d like a system that incorporates flex-time or the option to do work remotely and how it would affect their view of the business if such measures were implemented.
The internet also allows employees to gain access to the behind-the-scenes work life of the most employee-friendly businesses. Introducing regular events to the work calendar can be a great way to bring the team together and help them enjoy working at the company. It can be as simple as finding an evening once a fortnight for everyone to meet up at a bar or restaurant, with the business subsidizing a portion of the evening. Or, you could go as far as planning day trips during low-intensity periods.
If the work environment is particularly frantic, stressful, or competitive due to the nature of work or the ethos of the business, it can also help have a place where employees can go to get things off of their chest and receive guidance. Hiring a psychologist or training an existing HR staff member to be capable of coaching performance can go a long way towards helping employees who need hands-on nurturing, giving them guidance on how to handle the environment and how to improve in their line of work.
With the cost of losing an employee fully understood as well as the increased likelihood of workers who feel unappreciated leaving, it’s more important than ever to nurture your employees and create a work environment that is appealing, enjoyable, and helpful. After all, happy employees are far more productive than clock-watching disengaged employees.