Employees hand in a resignation for a variety of reasons. Some find fewer opportunities for growth, but more often, the reason is the improper engagement of staff. The lack of retention strategies makes employees feel undervalued and easily replaceable as a part of an organization.

The importance of implementing these strategies can in fact, be understood by the fact that it costs to an organization, almost three times the pay of that employee to replace an existing employee.

This cost constitutes loss of productivity, recruitment, severance and lost opportunities. And that makes employee retention even more crucial for an organization.

Employee retention is directly linked with employee engagement. And employee engagement has emerged as a driving force in business success for a long time.

High level engagement promotes employee retention, improves business performance and eventually, stakeholder value. Hence, here, we suggest some of the proven ways to engage employees more with their work and to retain them successfully.

Provide equal opportunities to grow

While many organizations focus on promoting new people, they fail to provide training and improvement opportunities to their older employees. This results in employees becoming disillusioned about their roles and eventually, they start looking for other employment opportunities.

When you constantly provide training opportunities to employees; they strive to improve their performance and feel valued. They make the most out of the advancement path you have laid-out and engage in bringing success for the company. They see these advancement opportunities as an investment into their future and continue to work diligently.

Challenge employees in a balanced manner

Challenging employees in different roles is good to give them exposure but that must be done with adequate balance. If an employee does the same job day in and out, this will lead to apathy and boredom. Similarly if an employee jumps through many hoops and are given challenging projects all the time, he/she will be ambivalent and demoralized about their role within the company. The underlying reason is that every employee is different and while one may find the work tedious another may find it rewarding.

As per the experts’ suggestion, one way to maintain the fine balance is to express your belief in your employees, push them out of their comfort zones, make them see failure as a stepping stone for learning and encourage the mindset of consistent growth.

Foster respect and give positive feedback

Giving respect is an inevitable factor for employee engagement and retention. This is something that cannot be excused and works as one of the top driving forces in employee retention. Similarly, every employee needs feedback to improve their performance.

This feedback must be constructive enough to ignite passion and to involve the employee in their roles even more – rather than devaluing employees’ efforts. The feedback has to be consistent, corrective and motivating for the employee in all scenarios, especially when it comes to urgent projects.