5 Employee Engagement Strategies to Retain Top Talent

According to a Digital Mag article, if you “have a company with 200 employees, and 30 of them leave throughout the year. That would leave you 170 employees.” Replacing those employees with 25 new employees leaves you with a turnover rate of 15%. It is a high number that small to medium-sized businesses cannot afford.

It’s therefore important to learn how to manage your employees. Here are the top employee engagement strategies to consider.

1. Provide Health Benefits with a Focus on Wellbeing

A company can personalize employee benefits with programs that include an on-site massage therapy practitioner, a game room for employees to de-stress, a gym in the building, or free fruit in the lunchroom. I remember working at a company that had a room for employees to rest during their breaks or lunch. It made the work environment feel like a second home, and it was rare for me to see an employee leave the organization.

2. Offer Career Development Training

Career development training can include a manager speaking with an employee on a quarterly basis to discuss their career path. For example, if an employee wants to become a manager, outline the training needed with a deadline for the employee to complete on-site training.

E-learning training can be available to employees when business is slow to keep them productive and learning new skills to advance their career.

3. Open Discussions on Work-Related Issues

A successful leader is open to hearing employee feedback on salary expectations, issues with health benefits, flexible work-life options and ideas to improve products. It can be in the form of a table topic meeting or weekly touch points with the team.  

If you have a remote team, schedule a monthly meeting. Ask employees to write down their ideas and keep an open mind. It is more productive to hear their thoughts about work conditions than potentially lose them as an employee to competitors.

4. Offer Flexible Work Options

A flexible work option can involve offering the employee of the month or the entire team a chance to work once a month from home with the idea that work productivity is a high priority. The option of one paid Personal Day can be offered for a worker to use for a birthday, wedding anniversary, or to study for exams.

Flexible work options can appear unconventional, but it is a benefit some organizations offer candidates when interviewing new employees.

5. Organize Extracurricular Off-site Activities

Unconventional strategies for team building can go a long way to helping to retain top talent. A business that practices a fun activity once a month will see an increase in employee happiness, productivity, job satisfaction and a reduction in turnover as a result.

The best way to find out what employees would like to do is via a survey to find out which activity will make them feel valued.

Final Thoughts

It is true that customers are the backbone of a company, but employees are just as important. An employee that feels their hard work is being valued is less likely to develop resentment. Employees who resent the company they work for will be less productive, less motivated and end up costing the company in both morale and revenue.

The golden rule of managing employees is to design wellbeing initiatives that make their working environment one they will enjoy every day.