Two years after the start of the pandemic, its effects are still felt by workers and organisations alike.
Globally, the old ways of working are now outdated, and workers now have higher expectations from their employers. Flexible working conditions, better work-life balance, more skills development activities, increased benefits and pay, and a clear commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are some of the expectations employees ask their employers.
But with the quiet quitting, the great resignation and the great reshuffling trends still at their peak in 2023, organisations should continue to focus on attracting and retaining top talent and creating meaningful employee experiences. After all, the cost of turnover is incredibly high – on average, it is estimated that losing an employee can cost a company 1.5-2 times the employee’s salary. Besides, statistics who that US companies spend $2.9 million per day in search of new talent.
Here is a handy checklist to help you continue to build a workplace people love so you can retain your best talent in 2023.
Relook at your company culture and constantly update it
The company culture is the organisation’s personality from the employee’s perspective. It covers the company’s mission, expectations, and work atmosphere, as well as what the company stands for and how it treats others. Besides, company culture directly affects the employee experience, how workers interact with your organisation, how passionate they are about their work and how strong their connection with their peers is.
Studies show that companies with great organisational cultures have 72% higher employee engagement ratings than organisations with weak cultures. Besides, 74% of US employees said they would consider leaving their place of work if the organisational culture were to decline, and 77% of US employees believe a robust corporate culture enables them to produce their best work.
With company culture and employee engagement working hand in hand, organisations must constantly maintain and improve their culture.
Here are some actions to tick in 2023 which will help you improve your company culture and increase talent retention:
- Revisit your company values – Do you need to update them? How are you going to communicate and celebrate them all year round?
- Ensure that you have a process in place for employees to share their feedback throughout the year
- Develop an end-of-the-year feedback survey for your employees, encouraging them to share ideas that you could act on to make the workplace better
- Foster recognition by creating a system where successes are constantly shared and celebrated. Organisations with recognition programs have 31% lower voluntary turnover. At Foothold America, our team meeting agenda has a section dedicated to Kudos, where employees recognise colleagues who went above and beyond.
- Conduct an audit of the tech and collaboration tools you have in place. Outdated tech tools can be a significant barrier to transparency and effective collaboration, especially if your employees work in different offices or remotely.
- Celebrate your employees by adding their birthdays and work anniversaries to your calendar.
- Create an event plan for the year to stay on top of the celebrations you would like to plan for.
- Revise your employee policies. Do any of them need to be updated? Based on the feedback given by the employees, should new ones be created?
- Plan and commit to key DEI initiatives for the year
- Conduct a pay equity audit to identify and close gaps and relook at your compensation and benefits package for all employees
Focus on learning and development (L&D) opportunities
Training and development activities help organisations attract and retain top talent, increase morale and job satisfaction, boost productivity and lower absenteeism. LinkedIn’s 2019 Workforce Learning Report show that 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in its employee training and development. Besides, engagement is 15% higher, and retention is 34% higher when employees have access to growth opportunities. Employees want to be trained in both hard and soft skills – whilst 88% of employees say it’s important to them to get workplace training on hard skills, which would enable them to perform their job duties more effectively, 84% of employees would like to receive training on soft skills, with leadership training being the most desired. For the L&D investment to pay off, organisations need to create a learning culture that encourages employees and leaders to learn actively while ensuring that the training sessions offered are relevant to the roles and aligned with the organisation’s goals.
- Introduce Personal Development Plans for your employees if you aren’t already doing so
- Consider implementing a Mentorship program at your company
- Allocate yearly employee allowance towards professional development activities
- Develop DEI training
- Consider developing open for all training programs, such as sessions on goal setting, self-motivation, stress management and accountability, as well as life-skills activities, such as financial wellness training.
- Provide people management workshops for any current and new managers
- Create new learning opportunities through lunch and learns, 1-hour workshops, company and team retreats
Analyse your organisation’s performance management
98% of businesses know that performance management is essential. However, only 64% have a practical approach. One solution to achieve this would be through a hybrid approach, where your regular, annual or bi-annual reviews merge with real-time, continuous reviews. This way, by implementing a continuous feedback approach within your organisation, you are maximising the chances of your employees meeting their goals and achieving their career professional development plans whilst also making them feel valued, appreciated and motivated. Besides, your performance management system becomes transparent, consistent, unbiased and prioritised all year round.
- Consider implementing a continuous feedback approach tied closely to your performance management review process.
- Analyse if your current performance management template is working. Does the template allow managers to align the employees’ strengths, skills and goals with the job roles and the department and business goals? Does the template have a section focusing on learning and development opportunities? Is the template easy to understand and fill? Is the template consistent across the organisation?
- Ask your employees and managers about their perception of the current performance management system and what they like or don’t like about it
- Consider implementing a peer-to-peer feedback approach
Continue to focus on wellness and employee wellbeing programs and activities.
83% of US employees suffer from work-related stress, and 63% of US workers are ready to quit their jobs due to workplace stress. US businesses lose up to $300 billion a year as a result of workplace stress and $51 billion due to depression-related absenteeism. Having a good workplace mental health program is in the interest of both the employee and the organisation and can positively lead to a decrease in staff turnover, a decrease in sickness absences and an increase in productivity and efficiency.
- Analyse if your company encourages open conversations. Do you have an open environment where employees feel that they can talk about personal issues with their managers or peers?
- Relook at the mental health benefits and resources you offer your employees. Are they being utilised? Are you missing benefits or resources that employees might want or need?
- Consider sending employee mental health surveys at least once a year to identify potential risks and encourage employees to make suggestions for improvements.
- Promote physical exercise and think about setting up regular in-office or online yoga or fitness classes.
- Consider offering an employee wellness stipend that could go towards gym memberships or online fitness classes, wellness books or any other well-being activities
- Offer perks programs to your employees, such as Perks at Work, Fond and Access Perks.
- Offer remote work setup stipends to ensure a more comfortable home office for your employees
- Promote a healthy work-life balance by offering flexible work arrangements, such as remote working or hybrid working. Consider implementing Summer Fridays at your organisation, where employees could have a day off every other Friday.
Focusing on employee retention and investing in activities which make employees feel appreciated, engaged, compensated fairly and have opportunities to grow should continue to be a focus in 2023 for all organisations.
By following the checklist above, you’ll be able to assess what activities you might want to implement in 2023 to support you in retaining your top talent and to help you continue to build a workplace environment where employees feel nurtured, motivated and encouraged to succeed.
