What is staff retention?

Staff retention (or employee retention) is defined as the ability of an employer to maintain its employees in their workforce. Employees leaving an organization can influence many things such as the organization’s productivity, engagement, and morale.

How can staff retention benefit your business?

There are many ways staff retention can benefit your business; a few examples of these are:

• Staff retention reduces turnover hassle; when a staff member leaves, it takes a significant amount of your time to process and to recruit a new employee to replace that person. Focusing on staff retention can reduce this hassle and save you time.

• Staff retention increases overall productivity; in some instances, it can take a new staff member 1-2 years to reach the level of productivity of the person that was replaced. Maintaining your staff means you are saving your business a lot of loss in productivity.

• Staff retention saves money! recruiting new staff members can be expensive. A new employee often comes with less productivity, more frequent mistakes (which could be costly), and a loss of revenue. So, to avoid these expenses, you need to maintain your staff.

How does training improve staff retention?

If your staff feel that you are not providing them with the right resources to explore their full potential within their role, they are far more likely to leave. Therefore, you must provide your staff with adequate training, so they feel confident in their skills and are progressing.

Training is one of the best ways to improve staff retention as it encourages staff to work harder and deliver better results. Training boosts a feeling that staff are valued by their employer and builds trust. It shows that you are committed to giving them the right resources and skills they require to ensure they are doing their job correctly. Consequently, they are more likely to enjoy working for your business and will want to continue.

A huge benefit in training your staff is that you will have more opportunities to hire from within your organization, meaning you can avoid recruitment costs!