Employee retention is always important, but it is especially important in a difficult economy. Obviously, there’s a lot of attention being given to employees who are leaving organizations due to layoffs and its connection to the economy.
But there are also the individuals who remain (also known as the “survivors”) and, most importantly, the people who are qualified, high-performers that a company needs in order to accomplish anything on a day-to-day basis.
Many companies offer knowledge-based services, so it’s important for these companies to take a closer look at who their talented people are, what they’re bringing to the company and make sure they’re engaged and performing at a high level. This has been difficult recently, however, due to the economy.
During a difficult economy, employers often forget how important communication with employees is and start to lack communication.
Generally, with respect to each business’s situation, failure to involve your employees in business decisions (by communicating to them) can cause people to feel disconnected. This is especially true for high-performing employees.
I think you should always get the feedback of your high-performing employees, regardless of the state of the economy. It’s important because these high-performers are the people who are essentially responsible for your business: They’re serving your customers.
So your high-performers are the people who are probably best-situated to guide your company. They can also serve as motivators by engaging other employees in communication.
These high-performers want to be involved. They want to be engaged. They want to be part of the solution. If you don’t take advantage of that, these high-performers may look for employment elsewhere.
You can’t afford to lose your best people. You especially can’t afford to lose them in a bad economy.
Steps to Take
If you want to be effective in your employee retention efforts during this difficult economy, here are some steps you can take:
- Engage all your employees, but specifically engage your high-performing employees. It may not be possible to give your employees every detail of what’s happening at your company. It may not even be possible for anyone to predict what it going to happen. But even delivering that message gets your employees involved and gives them perspective on the situation. Communicating to them lets them know they are important and that you want to engage them in the conversation.
- Tell your employees how important they are to your company’s success. Say, “We’d like you to help us with XYZ” or “We think your contribution is very important to our business.”
- Recognize people on a day-to-day basis. You don’t have to reward them lavishly, but you can give them credit for the things they accomplish or you can congratulate them on their successes. Those non-financial things may be even more important to an employee than a monetary reward.
- Be creative as a company and think beyond typical advancement or typical rewards for employees. Create new opportunities.
For example, maybe you can create a new position by shifting someone’s responsibilities, giving him/her new challenges to take on.
Get creative and think outside-the-box to come up with different ways you can retain your best employees during difficult times.