5 Big Benefits of Employee Retention
50% of organizations struggle with retaining their most valuable talent. To combat this, many smart organizations are investing more and more in developing workforce engagement and employee development initiatives designed to attract and retain top employees.
But what are those benefits of employee retention, exactly? We’ve got five good reasons why you should make your current workforce a top priority in 2021.
1. Save Time on Constant Hiring
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, it takes around six weeks to fill a vacant position. If you’re often rehiring due to turnover, that’s a lot of lost time. Your hiring team will, of course, accomplish other tasks during that time. But minimizing rehiring allows your team to focus on more strategic work.
2. Save Hiring Costs and Resources
Another of the benefits of employee retention? Reduced costs. One survey found that companies spend an average of 21% of a departing employee’s salary identifying a replacement – more if the employee has specialized skills. There are also indirect savings you can gain from employee retention. Like resources allocated for purposes other than sourcing candidates and training new hires, and avoiding compensation costs associated with overtime pay for workers doing double duty or new hire bonuses for salaried employees.
3. Ease Training Requirements
Experienced employees have accrued years of valuable institutional knowledge to pass on to more junior team members, which means new hires get up to speed more quickly. Relying on the insights of senior players in your organization also ensures that new policies or procedures roll out efficiently, with minimal disruption to existing processes and workflows.
4. Increase Productivity of Your Employees
High turnover harms your organization in several ways, some more obvious than others. In the short term, a revolving door of employees creates logistical headaches and lowers productivity. Managers scramble to deal with understaffing, take on extra responsibilities, and clean up mistakes made by team members picking up slack. And once you do fill a position, a new hire may take a full one to two years to reach the same level of productivity as the employee they replaced.
5. Increase Workplace Engagement
The benefits of employee retention also extend to engagement. You may be accustomed to thinking of the relationship in reverse – higher engagement leads to increased retention. But putting in the effort to hang on to your most dedicated employees means that, over time, your teams will consist of those with high levels of loyalty and motivation. Think of it as a positive feedback loop. Investing in employee engagement leads to a committed workforce, and committed workers are both less likely to leave and more inclined to share that positivity with co-workers, which leads to more engagement.
Whether you’re working on improving your bottom line or employee morale, the benefits of employee retention can help your organization meet its business goals.
For more information on how Cangrade solutions can support your efforts, contact us.