Your Employees Are Leaving. Here’s Why They’ll Stay.

What makes employees stay with their companies? What makes them leave? When we think about the fallout from the Great Resignation, we know that we collected data about why people quit. However, there needed to be more information about why people chose to stay with a company when there were plenty of opportunities.

Even now, as we march towards unsettled times, people are still resigning from their jobs and finding work elsewhere. Depending on the industry, the competition for top talent is still fierce.

So how can you make your workers stay? What matters to them? You might be surprised that the number one reason people remain with a company has little to do with salary.

Keep reading to learn more.

If you’re concerned about your top talent leaving, it may be time to invest in talent development software that keeps them engaged, happy, and dedicated to your company. Schedule a demo of the Trakstar platform today to see three different products that can help your retention efforts.

Why Do Employees Stay At Their Companies?

You want your employees to stay at your company for several reasons, not just one big one. While, of course, the ultimate goal is still retention, we want people to be happy with many things at work.

We know long-term employees are more valuable than constant hiring churn because tenured employees improve organizational culture and free up time. 

So what should you prioritize? What really makes them stay?

Employees Are Craving Growth and Development – Especially Millennials

Employees want to learn. This might be surprising for anyone who has had to administer training before, but it’s true. Providing ongoing training and development opportunities for employees is crucial to retention.

Why?

According to the Workforce Learning Report from LinkedIn, the number one reason employees stay is that they feel like their company is invested in helping them learn and be better. In fact, 94% of employees questioned in that survey said they would be more likely to stay if there was an investment in learning and development. 

Investing in learning is a simple way to stop the churn – and it helps your company! Employees who learn new skills give you a stronger competitive advantage. 

But you have to be smart about the way you train your employees.

Instead of bringing in an outside lecturer every few months, make your learning continuous by utilizing a learning management system. Employees can take courses when they want to, encouraging them to pay attention and retain the information. 

Don’t have an LMS? Trakstar Learn is one of the best options on the market today. Schedule a demo to learn more.

Your Organizational Values Need To Align With Employee Values

Another reason employees choose to stay with an organization is because they know their values and interests are considered by the executive team. Your employees need to know that you have their best interests in mind and that their work has value.

This is a harder one to conquer. How can you show organizational values without crossing the line? Focus on what directly impacts your organization, industry, and customers. 

Ensure that the work is meaningful, provides results, and that you share success stories. Instead of just funneling something like a case study to your sales team, share it with your organization so they can see real-life examples of how their work is used. 

When you get a 5-star rating, put it into a graphic and share it with your team on Slack or Teams.

It doesn’t take a lot. It just takes effort

Give Recognition and Credit When It’s Due

We all know that engaged employees are likelier to stay with their companies. So how can you encourage employee engagement?

The singular most effective way to engage your employees is to give them frequent and meaningful recognition. This can be done in multiple ways:

• Have a Slack channel where you call out employees for good work
• In weekly emails or meetings, highlight a few employees who are going above and beyond
• In 1:1 meetings or performance reviews, highlight the good work too

Find any and all ways you can highlight performance and give credit where it’s due

Emphasize Work-Life Balance

We’ve all been talking about work-life balance to the point where you may have even rolled your eyes just looking at the heading. However, it’s still relevant and important. With remote and hybrid environments still popular, but a clear shift for companies returning to the office, it’s something to look at again.

How can you ensure people have the work-life balance they crave? You may have been really good at doing it when they worked from home, but now that many are going back to the office, old habits can come creeping back. 

Remember that working from home when they’re sick or they need to be near their children (for example) isn’t going to make them work less. In fact, most studies show that workers with more flexibility actually work more! 

Emphasize work-life balance by knowing when someone works, avoiding emails at night and over weekends, and giving workers some autonomy over their schedules

Hold Better Performance Reviews

Employees hate performance reviews, right? Wrong! Employees hate bad performance reviews. If you’re not using performance reviews correctly, they can come across as ways to nitpick your employees. Good performance reviews help them set achievable goals, see where they can improve, and visualize what their careers will look like in the future. 

Performance reviews help people feel comfortable in their jobs as well, which is an important part of keeping workers where they are. They know if they are on the right track or what they can take to get there. Sometimes, workers who are doing just fine think they aren’t and end up looking for a new job and leaving – a simple performance review to tell them they’re doing okay would have kept them.

Prioritize Internal Promotions

Are you promoting from within or bringing outside workers into leadership roles? The possibility of getting promoted provides many people with a reason to stay with the company. Employees are also more likely to take their learning and development courses seriously because they hope it will lead to an improvement in their careers, salaries, and lives.

If companies never promote from within, employees will see themselves as temporary or disposable, which means they are likely to leave.

You Need to Be Transparent

We’ve said it before: transparency is one of the most important things HR can focus on this year. Transparency helps to create a better organizational culture and trust among employees and leadership. 

You won’t be able to be transparent about everything, but building a solid foundation of transparency is pivotal.

What Makes Employees Stay?

If you want your company to be successful, it needs to start with retention and getting employees to stay. HR needs to focus on what people are looking for in a job, not what they are looking to avoid. That’s how you make a truly great place to work.

Remember that great employees build resilient workforces that achieve organizational goals. To invest in your HR department, your employees, and your organization, click here to schedule a demo of Trakstar.