Retention Strategies That Respond to Worker Values

Job retention

Understanding how to provide and implement retention strategies that respond to worker values is absolutely crucial if you want to maintain and retain your work force into the foreseeable future. This article outlines both the how and the why to do just that.

Recognition

At the heart of each person is a need to be appreciated on some level. This includes inside the workplace environment. The best way to do this is through regular recognition in front of the employee's peers. This serves as a confidence boost, which leads to an internal feeling of happiness.

When people feel confident and needed, they will perform at a higher level. When people feel unnecessary or unimportant, they will become withdrawn, complacent and look for a way out.

Being an employer is much like being a parent, in that you must supply security and make people feel wanted and desired. People strive for those feelings, which help improve their feeling of self-worth.

Challenge

The second retention strategy for employees is creating a challenging environment. People enjoy feeling trusted with new activities or tasks. That said, start to shift responsibilities on a regular basis. Allow your employees to gain knowledge and insight by performing tasks typically assigned to someone else. When people do the same thing over and over, they get stagnant, bored, lazy and disgruntled. Avoid this before it happens by challenging them on a regular basis.

You will benefit by having a team of employees working closer together with a better understanding of the organization as a whole. They will gain respect for one another, because they will perform each other's job tasks, which will lead to better performance.

Compensation

Compensation is the third most important aspect of employee retention. If you have happy employees who feel challenged and appreciated, however, the compensation issue is less important.

Clearly, you must offer a competitive package of pay and benefits, but with all things equal in this regard, the happy employee will choose to stay with a company that also rewards him mentally and emotionally.

Aside from pay raises, their are other forms of compensation if budgeting will not allocate funds for higher base pay. Be creative. Award more vacation time for exemplary attendance and service. Provide gift cards in response to outstanding service and dedication.

Compensate employees with greater decision-making freedom and less micro management when they display good judgment. There are lots of forms of compensation, so use them all. The more you display caring and loyalty, the better relationship and dedication your employees will show you.