The Five Best Ways To Retain Employees 

As if finding talented workers isn’t enough of a challenge today, you have to be increasingly diligent to keep them from walking out the back door. Retention is becoming tougher. What can you do?

Here are the five best ways to retain employees:

1. Don’t Make Them Want to Leave

Employees today have a low tolerance for what they don’t like. And with unemployment at record lows and lots of available jobs, why shouldn’t they? So the first best way to retain employees is to not antagonize them! Identify the things that most irritate employees and then work to remove those irritants.

2. Keep Dangling the Carrots

People often leave for the prospect of something better – more responsibility, growth opportunities or pay, to name just three. So why not keep dangling (and delivering on) incentives to stay at your company. Always give them something to look forward to, something that excites them, something beyond what they already have.

3. Know What Motivates Them as Individuals

Isn’t this obvious? Get to know your people as individuals! Get to know what’s important to them. What their individual needs and wants are. Then show flexibility in meeting those needs and wants. And let them know when you do.

4. Remember to Compete

Keep a close pulse on what your competitors are doing. Don’t be slow to react to new practices they put in place to attract and retain employees. Don’t assume your competitors are standing still. Because they’re not.

5. Always Demonstrate Respect, Trust and Caring

At the end of the day, everyone wants to be treated with respect, trusted, and cared about as an individual. Continually connect at a human level by demonstrating all three.

Will doing all of this guarantee that you’ll retain your employees? No, but it will tilt the odds in your favor. And with the deck becoming increasingly stacked against you, that’s a bet you should want to make.