Retention of quality staffs

Taslim Ahammad :
Employee retention is one of the most important buzzwords most likely to hear from business authority/owner. The main concern of HR professionals and business executives is the retention of productive employees. Hence, it is more efficient to retain a quality employee than to recruit, train and orient a replacement employee of the same quality.
The effort by authority is to maintain a working environment which supports current staff in remaining with the business. Employee retention is the general strategy/ability of a business organisation to retain its employees intends to maintain a lower turnover. Employee retention should be one of the main focus areas of the human resources department in any business organization. Mainly employee retention policies are aimed at speaking to several needs of employees to enhance their job satisfaction and reduce the substantial costs involved in hiring and training new employee. Some studies predict that every time a business replaces a salaried employee, it costs 6 to 9 months’ salary on an average.
Most of the works leave an organization out of frustration and constant friction with their superiors or other team fellows. Some cases low pay, lack of growth prospects and motivation compel a staff to look for a change. The organisation must try its level best to retain those staffs who are really important for the system and are known to be effective givers. Employees typically follow some primary paths to turnover, each of which has different implications for a business: Worker dissatisfaction, better alternatives, a planned change, a negative experience. Extra predictors of turnover that merit careful attention comprise: administrative commitment and job satisfaction, quality of the employee-supervisor relationship, role clarity, job design, workgroup unity.
Every business spends a lot on attracting the best talent. These staffs contribute a lot towards the success of the business. All these assistances directly impact the bottom line of the business. The workers who stay with the business for longer time contribute efficiently and become integral part of the business and the position. If these workers leave the business and join the competitor, that would be mean double loss for the first business. First they will be straight impacted by the worker not being available and secondly the worker is now contributing to the competition.
Advance employee retention strategies. Ensuing employee retention efforts requires to think about things from the team’s?point of view. All workers not the same, of course, and each has unique wishes and goals. Workers want to feel that they are appreciated by their employer and treated fairly. Staffs want to be faced and excited by the job they are asked to do. The operative staff retention program addresses all of these concerns. In fact, the efforts should start on a new hire’s first day on the job. The training and support company provide from day one sets the tone for the staff’s ?tenure at the company and boosts job?satisfaction.
Ways to improve staff retention. Every area of the employer-employee relationship in the business deserves attention. Embrace these?key?strategies to improve companies’ employee retention and boost employee ?satisfaction: on-boarding and orientation, mentorship programs, employee compensation, recognition and rewards systems, work-life balance, training and development, communication and feedback, dealing with change, fostering teamwork, and team celebration. The final tip: remember to assess staff retention strategies at least once in a year. Workers want to stay current on market salary rates and benefits, and best practices in developing workplace culture and manager-staff relations. Doing so will help to keep staff morale high and turnover low while guaranteeing companies’ success.
Human resources, typically responsible for implementation by taking the following steps: determine whether turnover is a problem, establish a plan of action, implement a retention plan, and evaluate the results. That together would yield the information that a company needs to determine the extent of its problem and to help shape the retention strategies that are implemented in response. Furthermore, establishing appropriate benchmarks both external and internal is a key step in preparing to implement a staff retention strategy.
Also, audit retention initiatives in addition to continuing to review turnover rates and exit interview results is to conduct stay interviews of current staffs. Stay interviews help employers ascertain why good employees stay and what might make them to leave. This is highly recommended that managers themselves should conduct these meetings, after proper training, as they have the most direct relationships with employees.
In an increasingly globalised economy, retention of quality staffs is a global issue. Workers on foreign assignments face a number of issues that domestic employees do not, and the retention of international assignees poses a significant challenge to employers. Poor repatriation planning by employers is often mentioned as a cause of high turnover of employees returning from foreign assignments. Authorities must make efforts to keep in touch with expatriates to minimise employees’ feelings of isolation and disconnectedness from the home company. In addition, reverse culture shock may be an unexpected aspect of return of employee from foreign mission. Most importantly, returning expats need a crash course on how to live in their homeland again, and employer support is essential for their retention.
Employee retention techniques go a long way in motivating the employees for them to enjoy their work and avoid changing jobs frequently. Sincere efforts must make to encourage the employees so that they stay happy in the current job place and do not look for a change.

(Taslim Ahammad, Assistant Professor at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Gopalganj, Bangladesh)