Background
Employees value working for companies that make them happy. They feel valued in such companies hence they stay for long, which is good for the company because employee turnover is low. It saves the company time and money used in frequent recruitments of new workers. In our company, we have come up with practices that make our employees stay with us because we need to retain our best employees.
Practices that retain employees
Attractive pay packages
The first thing we have done is to give our employees good pay packages. The pay enables them to satisfy their needs as well as their wants. In turn, they are happy and stay longer with the company. Besides, good pay packages have made our company very attractive to people because we receive numerous job application letters per week. Mitchell (2009) urges that the pay package is very vital in keeping employees happy.
Benefits
The employees receive various benefits from the company. The benefits include medical coverage. The coverage covers the employees and their immediate family members. The cover is comprehensive and thus very attractive to the employees. The other benefits include allowing the employees to buy the company’s stocks at a subsidized price. All the employees have bought the stocks and thus they feel like part of the company and work hard for its success.
Career advancement
The employees can grow in their careers. In this regard, we give training to our employees to improve their hard and soft skills. Regular training has helped the employees to remain at the top of their game and very competitive with the emerging knowledge and changes in their various fields. Moreover, there is a fair chance for promotions in the company. We have done this to enable each employee to climb up their career ladder because we know that if an employee remains at one level for so long they will get bored and seek another place that can offer them a chance to grow. (McCue, 1995).
Competitive working environment
The company employs talented and competitive employees. The employees are very good at what they do thus they challenge each other to do the best. Consequently, employees get an opportunity to improve their skills. The company attracts employees who love working in an environment that has employees with sharp skills. Some workers can opt to remain in a company that offers them a competitive working environment and forgoes another that pays better but lacks such an environment (McKeefry, 2006).
Open communication channels
The Human resource department is very important in retaining open communication channels between the employees and the management. The employees have a chance to air their views and the company considers them. Through this open communication, the employees feel appreciated when their ideas are put into action. Our employees feel they are an integral part of the company and thus stay. On the other hand, the employees have an opportunity to air their grievances without the fear of intimidation. Giving them a chance to vent their frustration and point out things that they think are no going well ah helped to build a relationship of trust and cooperation among all the staff (Stewart, 2010).
Flexible working plans
The employees have very flexible working plans. We take into consideration things such as religious holidays and give employees who need to attend them an opportunity to do so. Some of our workers who are not necessarily in fields that require facing customers have the option of working remotely. Flexible working hours have allowed the employees to achieve work-life balance and this makes them happy and satisfied as they get to attend other matters such as family, which is very important.
Using the practices
The above practices are important for a company that aims to retain its employees. The practices can come in handy in solving some problems that may arise at the workplace. For instance, an employee may belong to a different religion and thus may not be comfortable working during certain days of the week. Allowing flexible working schedules can solve that problem by allowing the employee to assign his duties to a colleague or the colleague works on the days that the employee will be away and when he or she returns works for the colleague who can also take those days off. Allowing flexibility thus encourages diversity in the workplace, which is a very important concept in today’s working environments. A company can hire people from various backgrounds and be able to accommodate their differences and in turn benefit from the wide scope of expertise brought by the various employees.
In case a company has a high employee turnover it can revise, its pay packages and this might help to stop the employees from leaving which is not good for the image of the company. Moreover, the company can motivate its employees if they lack the enthusiasm to work by offering benefits such as medical covers, car loans, or holiday packages.
When not to use the practices
A company has to be strategic when using the above practices to retain employees. It must look at its financial position to analyze if it would be a good time to give things such as bonuses. It would be very unwise for a company to offer bonuses to some employees or the top management and yet lay off some workers. The company cannot also be in a position to revise the pay upwards in times of economic difficulties. The practices might also not be fruitful in the short term but a company needs to incorporate them in their policy so that they become a culture of the company.
Alternative practices
The practices that our company has chosen in a bid to retain workers have worked and the results have been seen with the many employees who have opted to stay with the organization. The practices have given the employee’s job satisfaction and they feel secure in the company because they are respected. There other alternative practices such as giving gifts to outstanding workers but we do not use this practice because we realize some workers might never have a chance of getting the awards and may become discouraged. Instead, we award all the workers during our annual end year party and then them for their contribution throughout the year. Some practices involve allowing the employees a casual dress code but we choose to retain our professional dress, which is good for the image of our company. However, we make exceptions to the employees who need to dress in things such as headscarves for religious reasons.
Reference List
McCue, M. (1995). Employees also need to be satisfied. Ophthalmology Times, 20, 36), 11.
McKeefry, H.L. (2006). Keeping them happy. eWeek, 23 (43), 6-10.
Mitchell, T. (2009). Career wise. Best Reviews, 110 (2), 18.
Stewart, H. (2010). Do happy staff make fro happy customers and profitable companies? Journal of Direct, data and Digital marketing Practice, 11 (4), 275-285.