Why are people leaving their jobs and what can we do to retain satisfied employees? A recent study from Mercer Canada published results as to why employees are leaving their current job. It’s food for thought in Australia amongst aged care providers. Here are the four most common reasons:
- compensation and benefits
- poor work-life balance
- lack of career advancement opportunities and mentorship
- lack of appreciation for their efforts.
Evidently, employers cannot offer a one-size-fits-all compensation package to their employees and expect it to meet all of their employees’ needs. It would seem also that as an employer we shouldn’t rest on our laurels when looking at our employee satisfaction. Often what you see on the surface isn’t what’s actually how people are feeling about job satisfaction. You can’t accurately assess an employee’s intention in leaving their job based on how you observe their engagement and satisfaction levels. Hence why it is essential to understand the factors influencing your organization’s ability to retain talent, to understand and mitigate the risks. Here’s some ideas – not rocket science, simple but effective and extremely important. Imperative aged care providers retain good talent and grow their own. We are facing a significant workforce shortage, and there is after all, a war on talent. Nor can an employer rely on determining an employee’s intention by observing how engaged or satisfied they are at work. It is essential to understand the factors influencing your organizations’ ability to retain its top employees – and this understanding can assist in mitigating the risks.
Some examples of this include:
Benchmark your remuneration packages
It is so important to measure your total compensation packages against industry benchmarks – do they align with current trends?
Targeted recruitment strategies
Accommodate the younger and older generations as prospective employees taking on a dominant share of the workforce. Actively manage and evolve your employee value proposition. What’s in it for them?
Career pathways
Provide your employees with a clear and transparent career path or opportunities for advancement.
Work/life balance
Try wherever possible to offer flexible work arrangements to support work-life balance. Whether it’s a time shift, start work earlier, leave earlier. Or start later, leave later. Or even working from home options.
Give full and frank regular performance feedback
Evaluate your performance management strategy more frequently rather than annually. Most employees require more frequent feedback!! An employee can at face value seem happy with their job, but research shows by giving more frequent performance feedback to employees they feel validated. This can have a drastic effect on performance and retention. Let your employees know how valuable they are to your organization. Think about how you can integrate some of the above-mentioned ideas into your HR plans. Mix this with a genuine desire to retain them and you are one step ahead of others in the War on Talent!