Top 7 Ways to Retain Key Staff

Staff retention, particularly retention of truly great employees is a competition.

You are competing with the personal goals of the staff members, against other businesses seeking to recruit the best possible teams, and to provide the best possible workplace conditions.

Here we look at the top 7 ways to help create an environment in which your best (key) staff are encouraged to stay with you.

1. Flexible working arrangements
   Provide genuine and generous opportunities for key staff to balance their personal lives and work commitments. Where operationally practical, providing staff with the ability to set their own hours can be more effective than competing to retain staff based on salary alone. Depending on personal circumstances, many workers are likely to see untold value in occasionally working from home or averaging their working hours over longer periods - rather than having set daily routines, the ability to work around family obligations, personal interests or children’s sporting events, is a benefit that will create significant loyalty.
   
   
2. Offer genuine opportunities for advancement
   Little demoralises long-standing staff as much as seeing key senior roles being offered to outside applicants. If your best and most-valued employees have the ability to step up into senior roles, promote from within. This also creates an upflow as you promote a series of your best people into the vacancies created. Not only will the promoted staff appreciate the acknowledgement of their value to the business, other key staff will see they have real prospects to be advanced and be groomed into roles of greater responsibility.
   
   
3. Provide beneficial training and career development
   Training and development provides a benefit to your business whilst also adding to the resumes of your staff – but why go out of your way to make your staff more employable? If your staff are shown they are valued, rewarded with regular recognised training opportunities and those who participate also are advanced within the business (see number 2!), why would they leave? Your best staff will want the benefits you are offering and are more likely to remain with you, particularly if scheduled training includes courses they may have undertaken at their own cost and time.
   
   
4. Pay your best staff at above the market
   If you want to keep the truly great staff in your team, you need to pay them what they are worth at all times. Do not wait until another business has offered a salary increase, make sure that staff member will not even consider a competing employment offer.
   
   
5. Seek real feedback and empower your staff to take ownership of their ideas
   Offer regular opportunities to have meaningful input into the day-to-day operations and strategic direction of the business. Action the truly great ideas and recognise those responsible by involving them in the rollout.
   
   
6. Create a positive working environment
   Take stock of your work places, regularly examine policy and procedure, ensure good staff morale is fostered and that heading to work is something to look forward to.
   
   
7. Profit sharing
   Taking home a share in the profits encourages a heightened interest in growing and enhancing the business. Your key staff will likely show more commitment and pride under such arrangements and will be more likely to stay with you.