Employee Retention

It is no secret that in the current landscape most business are struggling with employee retention. Life Work Solutions, a provider of staff retention and consulting services, provides the following turnover facts and rates:

-Over 50 % of people recruited in to an organization will leave within 2 years.
-One in four of new hires will leave within 6 months.
-Nearly 70% of organizations report that staff turnover has a negative financial impact due to the cost of recruiting, hiring, position coverage and training a replacement employee.
-Nearly 70 % of organizations report having difficulties in replacing staff.
-Approximately 50% of organizations experience regular problems with employee retention.

Based on these statistics it’s clear that it’s important to properly vet potential employees and build a retention strategy. At Sterling we have found a process that works for us, we thought these tips could help you.

Appealing to the Right People

Before posting your available position, define the job description with all of the relevant details. Ask for more details from a current employee in the same or similar position. By adding more details to your job posting you can reduce the amount of applications but bring in more relevant ones. If there is possibility for growth, mention it! Prospective employees are pleased to find they are able to grow with their company.

Once you are confident that you have created a sufficiently detailed job description, post your ads on your chosen platforms. These platforms could be local buy and sell pages, an employment-related search engine or on your social media pages.

In the posting be sure to mention an expected wage range and any benefits. This allows the reader to find out if your position will be able to support their lifestyle and gives you freedom to choose a wage based on the individual’s education and experience. See the map below displaying living wages across British Columbia.

What Creates Employee Retention?

In our experience we know that people want a low-stress, friendly and efficient workplace. Like most businesses we do our best to ensure these workplace qualities are met. However, often employees will not approach management about an issue they are experiencing. This could be because they don’t feel comfortable making a complaint or they don’t acknowledge the issue as a large one.

At Sterling we use a third party program to send out a weekly survey to our staff. The survey is different every week and the feedback management receives is anonymous unless the employee chooses otherwise. The surveys are a great way to get feedback from your staff. It asks questions that you may not think of when asking your employees for evaluation and it eliminates the pressure on the employee to bring it up with management.

We also have team-building practices in place. For example, every workday on our first coffee break we plank together. This started as a 30-day challenge and once it was completed we decided to maintain our planking times at 2.5 minutes. This is a very simple and minimally time consuming effort that all employees can join in on. For these 2.5 minutes our staff usually jokes around or has friendly conversation. Surprisingly for some of us, exercise has turned into one of our favorite times of day.

How Sterling Can Help

Imagine you are a tradesman looking for work and you attend two interviews. Both are fairly similar, they offer close to the same wage and the same distance from your home. After each interview you receive a tour of their facility, they also show you their work vans. These are the vans you’re presented:

Option #1

Option #2

You are likely to choose option 1 because it offers the best working conditions. Likely your potential employees will feel the same.

As a sort of signing bonus, one of our long-term customers has a van outfitted for every new tradesman they hire. They set a budget aside and let the newly hired employee tell us the layout they desire to best maximize their efficiency. There are standard or custom options available. Not only do they gain a sort of gift, but your company now has a new asset.

This allows for your employee to feel valued, cared for and excited to begin working for you. There are over 2000 hours in a standard work year, many of these your employees spend commuting. Providing your employees with an effective and rattle-free organizational solution is something your techs will greatly appreciate.

With these tips you can yield more relevant applications and hang on to those five star employees. Contact us today and let Sterling help you get more done.