In today’s current labor shortage with more available jobs than talented candidates, retaining your top EHS performers is more important than ever. As a manager, it’s your job to ensure your employees are engaged, productive, and committed to their work and your company. These tips will help you retain your best team members:
1. Provide training and professional development opportunities.
Your best employees strive to continue to build their skills and grow their careers. When you allow them to attend training conferences, webinars, and other events, it gives them the chance to develop their abilities. Additionally, consider creating a mentorship program to pair senior-level professionals with your top talent. This gives employees training to help them do their jobs better and also enables you to build a pool of potential new leaders.
2. Leverage the onboarding process.
When you bring on a new employee, it doesn’t mean the entire hiring process is over. Ensuring the worker has a positive onboarding experience will help them get acclimated to their job faster. Make sure your new hire has all the tools and resources they need to do their job effectively and check in with them on a regular basis to see if they have any questions or feedback. New employees will be much more likely to stay with your company long term when you demonstrate that you care about your workplace team and its success.
3. Recognize your employees for their hard work and accomplishments.
Take the time to thank your employees for the work they’re producing and recognize their achievements. According to Gallup’s annual study of the U.S. workforce, only one in three employees strongly agrees that they were given recognition for their work in the past seven days. Employees who feel as though their work isn’t appreciated are much more likely to quit in the next year. That’s why it’s critical to thank your staff members for their hard work regularly. For example, you could stop by an employee’s office to congratulate her on a recent work accomplishment, or recognize a worker’s effort on a project during a team meeting in front of the entire team.
4. Provide effective feedback and communication to your team members.
When you communicate with your employees on a regular basis, it helps them to stay up to date with the status of company projects, and allows them to know what they’re doing well in their jobs and the areas they need to improve in. Set aside time at least once a month to sit down with each of your team members to see how they’re doing with their projects and what they need from you to do their jobs better. Showing staff members that you’re committed to their success through frequent communication will help them stay committed to their jobs as well.
5. Consider offering flexible schedules.
More and more companies are offering telecommunicating opportunities and flextime, which allows employees to choose their work schedule, as employee benefits. This helps staff members to better manage their work-life balance, which in turn, allows them to be more productive when they are working.
Retaining your top-performing EHS employees isn’t an easy feat with an abundance of available opportunities in the job market for them. Managers must go above and beyond to ensure their employees don’t start looking for greener pastures. Implement these strategies to keep your team members happy, productive, and committed to sticking around your company for the long term.
Resource: 10 Tips for Great Employee Retention, Paycor, Paycor.com.