{"id":32756,"date":"2019-01-10T16:48:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T16:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/14-mistakes-to-avoid-in-order-to-increase-your-employee-retention\/"},"modified":"2021-10-04T09:37:27","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T09:37:27","slug":"14-mistakes-to-avoid-in-order-to-increase-your-employee-retention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/blog\/14-mistakes-to-avoid-in-order-to-increase-your-employee-retention","title":{"rendered":"14 Mistakes to Avoid in Order to Increase Your Employee Retention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Your company has a very high turnover rate and this is causing problems for your business?<\/p>\n<p>A high rate of staff turnover is a bit like having a fever.<br \/>\n It\u2019s not a disease in itself, but a symptom of one, a clue that something in the \u201cbody\u201d of the company is not working properly.<\/p>\n<p><b>Most often, the ultimate cause behind a high turnover rate is an error in your strategy for the selection and retention of your staff<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>In order for the \u201cmarriage\u201d between a company and an employee to last for a long time, it requires effort on both sides. It\u2019s reasonable to expect a certain \u201cfidelity\u201d on the part of your employee, provided you give them good reasons to stay for a long time and you avoid committing strategic errors.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the most common such errors.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>1. Mistaken selection<\/h4>\n<p>Even the most careful employee retention strategy is doomed to fail if we have already made the mistake of hiring a new employee who is not a good fit for the company\u2019s values and working environment.<\/p>\n<p>This is why it is essential that you should clearly convey the day-to-day atmosphere of the company to the candidate during the interview phase\u2014but also through your employer branding activities on your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/software\/recruitment-software\/career-site\" style=\"text-decoration:underline\" title=\"career site\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Career Site<\/a>, on corporate social media channels and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, we run the risk of making them feel like a fish out of water from day one.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>2. No onboarding strategy <\/h4>\n<p>For many companies, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/blog\/onboarding-10-tips-for-a-perfect-orientation\" title=\"onboarding\" style=\"text-decoration:underline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">process of welcoming and integrating a new employee<\/a> is limited to nothing more than processing paperwork.<\/p>\n<p>This is a major missed opportunity: the first few weeks of working are truly decisive for making the newcomer into a loyal part of the team. We can assign them a mentor, introduce them to colleagues, share with them our corporate values, clarify their expectations and goals, and ensure that this transition period is, if not a pleasant process, at the very least a painless one.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>3. Unclear goals<\/h4>\n<p>Do your employees know exactly what is expected from them year after year, or are they too often left in the dark, unsure about the impact of their work on the company\u2019s business?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/blog\/13-tips-setting-employee-goals\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"tips for setting goals\" style=\"text-decoration:underline\">Setting goals together<\/a> for the year, or for six months, is a process of fundamental importance for any company, and it is certain to give you a good return on the time invested.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>4. The absence of career paths and opportunities<\/h4>\n<p>How long would you stay with a company that doesn\u2019t offer you any opportunities for career advancement? Probably no more than a few years.<\/p>\n<p>If a company wants to have motivated and loyal employees, it must guarantee ample opportunities for professional growth within it, and do so in a clear and transparent manner. Otherwise, the best talent will eventually seek other firms where they would be able to unleash their full potential and put the experience they\u2019ve accumulated over the years to good use.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>5. Not enough attention paid to employee benefits<\/h4>\n<p>Many articles and statistics have shown that benefits can have a greater positive effect on the rate of retention of employees than the salary level, at the exact same cost to the company.<\/p>\n<p>There are an infinite variety of benefits that you could offer to your employees, and some of them come at no extra cost.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>6. No training plan<\/h4>\n<p>A valuable employee feels the need to cultivate their skills and knowledge in order to remain competitive in their field. A company that doesn\u2019t offer in-house training, or doesn\u2019t offer support for their employees to attend professional courses, Executive Master\u2019s courses and so on, risks rapidly losing its skilled human resources that are essential for its competitive edge. Add to that the fact that, most likely, these skilled individuals will be picked up by its competitors.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>7. No bonuses<\/h4>\n<p>Bonuses tied to employee performance are a staple for some jobs, such as that of sales representative, but you can apply the same principle to other types of positions and get excellent results in terms of increasing employee retention. If the quality of an employee\u2019s work is rewarded with something extra, that is a great additional reason to be satisfied with the company they\u2019re working for.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>8. Little flexibility<\/h4>\n<p>Without needing to become a pioneer of Smart Working\u2014a mode of working that doesn\u2019t fit in every context\u2014a company can significantly increase its ability to retain its employees by avoiding any unnecessary rigidity, for example regarding working times, the dress code or internal procedures.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>9. Micromanagement<\/h4>\n<p>All workers have a desire to grow professionally and to take on more responsibilities. If the managers of the company regularly engage in micromanagement, thus stifling their ambitions, it\u2019s normal for these employees to begin to consider the possibility of a change of venue.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>10. Inadequate salaries <\/h4>\n<p>The salary is certainly an important element in your employee retention strategy, although it is rarely decisive for companies that offer excellent benefit packages and engagement for their staff. Do some competitive benchmarking to make sure your company is offering competitive wages, and make changes where necessary.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>11. Ignoring feedback<\/h4>\n<p>There is nothing more frustrating for an employee than to realize their opinion is being disregarded when it comes to corporate decisions, even if they have all the requisite credentials to participate in the discussion process.<\/p>\n<p>To improve employee retention, it\u2019s not enough just to listen to the ideas of our employees: we must also show that we have been receptive to the best ones, and put them into practice.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>12. An antiquated evaluation system<\/h4>\n<p>An evaluation system can be very helpful for maintaining motivation and employee satisfaction to a high level. However, if you\u2019ve set it up as a rigid process that is non-transparent and rarely undertaken, it can prove to be a double-edged sword. If the system requires only that a manager fill in an evaluation sheet for the employee at the end of the year, without the latter having any input in the matter, this will inevitably generate discontent. Fortunately, today it has become very easy to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/blog\/employee-evaluation-form\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"text-decoration:underline\" title=\"The employee evaluation form: from paper to digital\">overcome the limitations of the traditional assessment forms<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>13. No policy for increasing employee engagement<\/h4>\n<p>If your company doesn\u2019t practice any form of employee engagement activities, not only will its rate of retention suffer, but employee productivity will go down as well. There is a virtually endless list of initiatives you can organize to better engage your employees: team-building exercises, lunches, dinners, evenings out with colleagues, investments in training courses, work\/life balance, aspects of Smart Working and so on. Each of these will have a positive impact on employee retention. Your employees spend so many hours of their day at your company, so it is natural that they will prefer a more engaging and enjoyable environment.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h4>14. Technological backwardness<\/h4>\n<p>In Italian companies, millennials are becoming an ever-larger share of the workforce. For this generation of workers\u2014as well as for many professionals who belong to previous generations\u2014it is simply a must to have modern and effective tools at their disposal (both in terms of software and hardware). For such workers, not having a <a href=\"\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Altamira HR software suite\" style=\"text-decoration:underline\">self-service system for the management of HR processes <\/a>is as befuddling as having to deal with applications that are not optimized for mobile devices.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p p style=\"font-size:10px\"><i>Copyright: \u00a9Sergey Nivens\/Fotolia.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your company has a very high turnover rate and this is causing problems for your business? A high rate of staff turnover is a bit like having a fever. It\u2019s not a disease in itself, but a symptom of one, a clue that something in the \u201cbody\u201d of the company is not working properly. Most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":32757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[350,352],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hr-online","category-human-resources-articles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}