Every business owner knows how important it is to keep hold of staff, especially high performers and loyal employees who know the business and its customers well. But staff retention has become trickier in recent years, with the Great Resignation used as a label for this post-pandemic employment trend.
Forbes Advisor recently published an article for business owners who want to boost their staff retention, called 15 Effective Employee Retention Strategies for 2023. If you’re worried about staff turnover and want to find ways to boost your staff retention, it’s well worth a read.
We were delighted to see that five of the 15 strategies covered in the article can be met by the employee benefits that Enjoy Benefits offers. Even better news – it’s quick and simple for you to start offering these yourself or add them to your package if you’re already a client of ours.
Find out how you can lean on our expertise in providing employee rewards to make staff feel valued and increase their satisfaction and loyalty. Get in touch with us through our web form to find out more about all our staff benefits, or call us on 0800 088 7315.
No1 rule for retention: Offer competitive salaries
Recently we published findings on this blog that for many employees flexibility can matter more than money. But it’s also true that the reason many people give for switching or leaving their jobs is because of remuneration. Employers want to feel they’re being paid fairly and also trust that they can afford the cost of living where they live.
Decent wages are what American psychologist Frederick Herzberg calls a ‘hygiene factor’. He argues that if pay and things like job security or working conditions aren’t good, then ‘motivating factors’ like recognition and growth opportunities become secondary. They just won’t be enough to make people stay.
Calculating the cost of low wages
If the wages you offer are considerably lower than your competition, it’s likely you could lose your best employees, and lower performers will take their jobs. This could cost you more money in the long haul since replacing and training staff has a financial impact too.
The Society for Human Resource Management estimates it can cost six to nine months of an employee’s salary to replace them after you take into account things like headhunting, hiring and training costs.
So it’s always worth knowing what the salaries are in your area for similar jobs to the ones in your business. And if leavers cite pay as the reason they’re switching to a competitor, it’s worth working out whether replacing them will end up costing you more in the long run.
The Government has a calculator where employers can check they’re paying workers the national living wage. Click here to find out more.
Flexibility matters
Next on the list in the Forbes article is flexibility, and this is where Employee Benefits can help. Remote or hybrid working has become much more common in workplaces since the pandemic, and it’s a switch that has been valued by employees.
In several surveys, flexibility comes out top as the most popular employee benefit. While you don’t need our Employee Benefits to offer flexibility like reduced hours, home working or flexible start or end times, we can help create an extra layer of flexibility that’s very popular with staff.
Our Holiday Exchange Benefit gives employees an added way to shape their working life to suit their needs. Basically, it lets them adjust their holiday allowance up and down (within limits) while adjusting their pay to match. Let’s take a closer look at how it works.
Adjusting holiday allowances
With the Holiday Exchange Benefit, staff can choose to buy or sell extra days of holiday.
If an employee’s current holiday entitlement is 25 days per year and they choose to buy 3 days of additional holiday, their new entitlement will be 28 days. There will be a reduction in their salary to the value of the number of days holiday they have bought.
Staff who find they always have holiday time left at the end of the year can sell some of their unused days for an increase in their salary to the value of the number of days they have sold.
This helps improve work-life balance, which is another of the key strategies that Forbes recommends employers boost to retain staff. So this one simple benefit positively impacts staff retention in more than one way.
Get in touch to find out more about adding the Holiday Purchase Scheme to your benefits. Contact us.
Recognise employees for their work
No5 on Forbes’s list is recognising employees for their work and we can make this easy for you. Our Employee Rewards scheme is widely used by our clients to show appreciation for their employees’ work. Like our other benefits, it’s very effective and easy to administer.
You choose which employees are rewarded or your employees can even nominate each other (you choose who gets the award though). Then we let the employee select from a wide range of digital and physical gift cards and we invoice you for the agreed amount.
Our Employee Rewards scheme is simple to integrate with your own incentive schemes. It gives employees choice over their rewards, and when and where they want to redeem it. Best of all, they can spend their reward gift cards on a wide range of leading UK brands.
Find out more about our Rewards Scheme here.
Provide wellness offerings
Well-being is rightly becoming more recognised as valuable for staff retention. It comes in at No10 on the Forbes list. Prioritising employee’s physical and mental health is important for companies that want to reduce illness, create a positive culture and boost engagement.
Things like gym membership and cycle-to-work schemes encourage employees to get fitter and healthier by saving them money on gyms and bicycles.
Our comprehensive Wellness programme features helpful videos on all the main areas that affect mental health. Sleep, nutrition and finances are all covered, and there’s an informative mental health awareness video too.
Find out more about our Wellbeing package here.
Offer staff job perks
Right behind providing wellness offerings on Forbes’s list at No11 is ‘giving other job perks’. We have a host of these in our employee benefits package, from private healthcare insurance and a workplace nursery scheme to discounts on technology and car leasing.
Our employees’ Discounts Club offer extends the perks to almost anything your staff might want to buy, from clothes and home furnishings to days out and travel.
Find out more about all our benefits and our Discount Club, where staff can save up to 40% on holidays, days out and entertainment.
Sometimes it’s time to say goodbye
Absolute employee retention isn’t always possible, and at some point employees will move on, whether to take up a different job, change direction in life or their career, or even to retire.
Knowing when it’s time to say goodbye and handling employee offboarding effectively is also important for employee retention. The remaining staff will know they will be well taken care of while they work for you, and also whenever they do move on themselves.
Summary
Valuing employees using staff benefits can be a key part of your retention strategy. They make staff feel valued and recognised while they work with you, and that enhances not just retention but employee wellbeing and your business’s productivity and success.
Read the Forbes Advisor article on employee retention strategies in full.
About Us
At Enjoy Benefits, we have great experience in helping companies of all sizes introduce benefits that are suitable for their workplace.
Benefits are easy to set up and ongoing administration is then run through a hub, allowing employees to manage their own benefits while the employer can see which benefits are proving popular and what level of take-up each has had.
If you would like an obligation-free chat to discuss which benefits might work for your business and your employees, please contact us by calling 0800 088 7315 or using our Contact Form.
Ready to start working with us?