The 4 steps to retaining employees - How to get satisfied employees

Retention of employees

Employee retention should be part of every company's strategy.

Retaining your employees saves your company money and ensures employees a good working environment. It costs a company more than 70% of an employee's salary for a replacement. Therefore, retaining your employees can both be good for your company's finances and for your employees' satisfaction with the workplace.

Stand out from the third of the companies in Denmark that have not yet laid out a strategy for retaining their employees by reading further in this article.

Step 1: Give the employee a sense of belonging to the company

Some companies make the mistake of reacting only when it is too late.

The most talented employee may have sought new challenges in a new company and you try to hold on to your employee by offering higher pay, more employee benefits, etc. But it's too late, because the employee has already made their decision and accepted the new job.

Therefore, you must continuously be aware that your employees have an affinity with your company and therefore do not want to look for new paths and opportunities.

It may be a good idea to state what your company can offer its employees, so that they feel valued and recognised. Your employees must want to be in the company and remain committed to their work, which you can contribute to if you continually ask yourself this question.

You can also learn more about your employees' wishes and goals by following the next step, which is detailed below.

Step 2: Hold retention interviews with your employees

Calling your employees for an interview can involve a certain amount of fear, because what if they ask for something that cannot be accommodated. Here is some advice on what you can do if you find yourself in such a situation

1. Meet the employee with recognition. Avoid rejecting the wish, but instead say that it is good that the employee is honest
2. Have an open and honest conversation about why the wish cannot be fulfilled at this time
3. Inform the employee that you will investigate whether it is possible to fulfil the request and get back to the employee as soon as you know.
4. Ask genuinely whether the employee might be interested in something else, for example working from home one day a week, which might be easier for the company to offer

Now that we know how important retention conversations are for businesses, we can move on to exploring step 3.

Step 3: Recognise your employees

The most frequent reason for employees resigning their positions is lack of recognition.

It is especially common within the first six months that employees resign as a result of this problem. It is therefore recommended that you hold interviews with new employees at 30 day intervals during the first 3 months of their employment and then every quarter.

The advantage of doing it this way is that the manager continuously knows what is going on in the company. Therefore, the manager can react to problems and nip them in the bud. In addition, by holding these retention interviews, you show that you recognise your employees and value them.

What questions should one ask at such a retention interview, you might be thinking? You will get an answer to this in the next section.

Step 4: Ask the right questions

It is important that challenging and inviting questions are asked at these retention interviews. You can be inspired by the following points if you lack some good and relevant questions.

1. What makes you stay in this workplace? What could make you seek new paths?
2. What tasks are you most enthusiastic about? And what tasks do you wish belonged to someone else?
3. If you won the lottery and quit, what would you miss about this job?
4. Where are you interested in learning new knowledge and where do you want to develop over the next year?
5. What can I, as a manager, do more or less of?
6. How can I best support you in your career goals?
7. If you could decide entirely for yourself, what would your working day look like?
8. Do you feel recognised? And how do you best receive recognition?
9. What do you wish you had known before taking this position?
10. If one of your friends was hired at the company, what would you tell them about the workplace?

In addition, have you thought about what talent development can do in terms of creating employee retention?

Look here: