How to Support Employees Who Stay

Employees around the world have made their thoughts and opinions known. They aren’t happy at work. More than 12 million people quit their jobs in July, August, and September 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A Gallup poll revealed that, whether they’ve quit or not, nearly half of all workers are actively looking to find a new job.

Yet, despite all the news about high quit rates and general discontent, not every employee is leaving. Some have decided to stay at their jobs. And many of those employees are left to pick up the slack and perform the tasks and responsibilities that would have been performed by their former colleagues. While you want to focus on filling the roles that might have been left vacant when people quit, it’s equally important to reduce your attrition rate and focus on retaining the employees who haven’t left.

The key to keeping employees is helping them feel supported and valued on the job. Here are a few ways to do that.

Set-Up Regular Check-Ins

Connecting with your team members regularly, both one-on-one and in groups, is essential for keeping tabs on how they feel about the job and how they feel overall. Set up check-in meetings either monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly to touch base with your team. During these meetings, you can discuss your employee’s goals and make plans to help them achieve those goals.

You can also use the check-ins to discuss areas where your employees can grow. For example, an employee might be interested in developing management skills or learning more about a particular software program or hardware. You might be able to point them in the direction of opportunities that would help them develop personally and professionally.

Listen

If your company recently had a lot of employees quit or leave, stress levels might be high and the employees that remain might feel pushed to their limits. If an employee comes to you with a concern about their workload, take the time to listen to their concern and address it.

Often, the employees that stay get saddled with more of the work, so that they too eventually decide it’s not worth it. To keep that from happening, take a minute when your employees say they have a concern and try to address it. You might not be able to solve it immediately, but if you give your team members space to express their concerns and show them that you’re working to fix the issues, they’ll be more likely to stay on the job.

Offer Development Programs

You want your company to grow and thrive and one way to ensure its growth is to give your current employees opportunities to grow and thrive, too. Creating and offering programs that help employees develop skills, such as management training programs or programs that teach hard skills, can make your team members feel more content with the work they do and can give them a path forward.

One thing you might not want to do is require employees who complete a training program through your company to stay at your company for a specified amount of time. A time commitment might seem like a way to guarantee your staff stays on board, but can actually create resentment in the long run. It’s better to offer a no-strings-attached training program and to make it clear that there are advancement opportunities at your company, but that no one is obligated to pursue them.

Show Your Gratitude

If you’re grateful to the team members who haven’t quit, show them that gratitude. You can do so in many ways. The most obvious way to reward employees and thank them for taking on more work and more responsibility is to pay them more.

Since increasing wages isn’t a feasible option for all companies, you might want to try other options. They can be as simple as offering free lunches on Fridays or giving gift cards or other small rewards for a job well done.

Keeping your attrition rates low and increasing employee retention is a key part of your company’s growth strategy. The virtual CFOs at New Direction Capital can work with you to help your company grow even in challenging times. To learn more, hire your virtual CFO today.