Imagine a situation where your top talented employees leave the organization, and there is no other employee with the same level of expertise and knowledge to work on the project. The situation has started affecting critical functions and, without a suitable replacement, hamper productivity and cause project delays.
Employees leave their jobs for various reasons like a career change, retirement, unequal compensation, stress, burnout, lack of growth opportunities, and more.
According to a work institute report,
“63% of employee turnover is for preventable reasons.”
Therefore, it is necessary to identify the core reasons for employee attrition and formulate a strategy to retain them effectively.
This article discusses the various strategies to manage and retain employees and how an efficient resource management solution will help do the same.
First, let us look into the basics.
1.What is employee retention, and why is it important?
Employee retention refers to certain strategies, practices, and policies that organizations implement to keep their talented employees engaged. It aims to provide a positive work experience for employees while limiting voluntarily or involuntarily turnover rates.
Increasing employee retention directly influences the performance and success of the company. For one, constantly hiring and training employees is time-consuming and arduous. For two, when experienced employees leave, the company loses industrial knowledge and expertise. Therefore, it is necessary to enforce employee retention strategies.
Increased employee turnover affects work quality and competitive edge because it lowers workforce morale and engagement. Thus, adopting employee retention techniques will help organizations develop a long-lasting connection with the workforce. Subsequently, it enhances employee morale, job satisfaction, productivity, brand loyalty, and profitability.
Now that the definition and importance of employee retention are clear, let us look into some ways to manage and retain employees effectively.
2. 6 ways to effectively manage and retain employees
There will always be some employees joining and leaving the organization, but by adopting the right retention strategy, you can ensure that your workforce has excellent experience from day one at the company.
Here are six strategies that will help you to retain your valued talent:
1. Enable competent resource allocation
While allocating on projects, managers need to ensure that employees’ skills align with the project requirements. On one hand, assigning an over-skilled employee to a non-critical task lowers morale and engagement. On the other hand, deploying an under-skilled resource to a critical job can cause delays and compromised quality. Thus, competent allocation is necessary for maximizing productivity and enhancing employee satisfaction.
Therefore, managers need to assess the skillsets, availability, capacity, and other attributes of resources and match them to the right tasks. Thus, when your employees feel their competencies are deployed in the right place, they will feel motivated and continue with your organization.
2. Provide competitive salary and compensation
Companies need to pay their employees competitive compensation and other benefits to ensure engagement and job satisfaction. Employers can evaluate and adjust salaries periodically and provide other forms of compensation like bonuses, incentives, etc.
Organizations can also offer additional benefits such as wellness offerings, paid leave, flexible work schedules, and more. When employees are paid fairly, they are more likely to stay motivated and go the extra mile to achieve their goals, thus reducing turnover and creating an overall positive work environment.
3. Optimize workforce utilization across the enterprise
Over/underutilization of resources can result in decreased workforce productivity and performance. The underutilized employees exhibit disengagement as they are not tapped into their maximum potential, and overutilization can cause excessive stress and burnout, leading to attrition.
Therefore, it is necessary to track employee utilization levels and ensure that no one is over or under-allocated against their capacity. Additionally, they can mobilize resources from non-billable to billable work. In case of overutilization, they can also implement resource leveling and smoothing techniques to ease the workload. Thus, it facilitates managers to optimize the resource health index, improve productivity, and eventually increase retention.
4. Create individual development plans
The LinkedIn report reveals that 94% of employees are willing to continue if their employer invests in learning.
Professional development and growth are crucial factors that motivate employees to stay within an organization. Therefore, managers must formulate Individual Development Plans (IDP) and upskilling programs that align with the resources’ career goals and company objectives.
In addition, they can provide shadowing, cross-departmental work, and on-the-job training opportunities to level up their workforce’s expertise. Thus, providing a space for a learning curve within an organization will leave no room for attrition cycles.
5. Provide opportunities across matrix boundaries
Working on the same tasks and projects leads to boredom, disinterest, and disengagement. These are some of the primary reasons for employee attrition. Therefore, managers should provide various opportunities to help employees diversify their portfolios.
At the same time, they also have to consider resource skills and interests while creating a cross-functional team for a project. Since they are working on multifaceted projects, it improves their skills and aids career growth. All this collectively makes them feel more driven and stay with the firm for the long haul.
6. Foster a supportive and inclusive workplace
A diversity and inclusion strategy can help companies retain top personnel and drive the best results. In a diverse work culture, employees are recruited regardless of their religion, country, community, and sexuality. It ensures fair opportunities for the workforce while enhancing employee satisfaction, teamwork, and productivity.
Organizations can also implement an open-door policy that enables the workforce to share opinions and concerns transparently. This creates a positive work atmosphere where every voice is heard and respected. Thus, it will make every resource feel supported by the firm, thereby improving retention.
Discussed above are some ways to formulate an effective retention strategy. Let us now look at how resource management software can help in retaining the workforce.
3. How can resource management software help manage and retain employees?
The resource management software provides 360-degree visibility across the enterprise, enabling managers to view the resource’s current and future work allocations. This allows them to allocate resources based on their availability and ensure that the right resources are assigned to suitable projects and no resource has less or more work.
Moreover, managers can also use the utilization reports in real-time and analyze the performance metrics. In case of under/overutilization, they can implement corrective measures like resource leveling and smoothing to optimize the workforce’s schedules and ease the workload, thus negating burnout and disengagement.
In addition, the tool with its forecasting feature helps managers predict resources that will end up on the bench in advance. They can also use project vacancy reports and bench reports to assign suitable benched resources to appropriate billable or strategic work. In case if employee’s skills do not match any vacancy, then upskilling/reskilling can be taken up to retain the workforce.
Not just that, the tool helps efficiently manage and retain employees by giving employees the choice to select the projects based on their interests. Managers can publish open positions mentioning specific details, and relevant interested resources can be booked for the project.
All these features of the resource management tool collectively help to manage and retain employees by empowering them and preventing under/over utilization.
Conclusion
Every organization has its unique areas that need improvement; therefore, it’s essential to pair the strategies mentioned above with the resource management solution. It will help the company to manage and engage the workforce efficiently and motivate them to stay with you for the long haul.
