A survey by the North East England Chamber of Commerce found that 45 per cent of firms had faced skills or labour shortages over the last 12 months.
Of these, most sought to address the shortages by increasing investment in recruitment (39 per cent), training (32 per cent) and pay and benefits (24 per cent).
With a skills shortage presenting such a risk to North East employers, more than ever our attention should be drawn to employee retention.
Your employees are jumping ship and you’re questioning everything from pay brackets to office décor. From skills shortages, huge handovers and impact on delivery. To recruiting and training new staff. Not to mention the whip round for leaving gifts and emotional goodbyes. It can be a costly occurrence and a draining for all involved.
So, what can employers do to spot the signs and prevent a potential wave of leavers?
Jayne Hart MCIPD, Director of The HR Dept Newcastle, offers up some practical steps you can take to improve employee retention in your business.
REVISIT RECRUITMENT
Do you have enough steps in your recruitment process to ensure that you are attracting the right people to your roles? From accurately naming job roles to making sure you are matching skill sets and values with specifications, strong recruitment can play a big part in employee retention.
Invest in 1-2-1 time
Having regular employee reviews is standard practice. If your employee reviews are currently a formal annual affair, you may want to consider introducing some less formal 121s through the year.
Explore how are they handling their current responsibilities? Are they working well in their team? Could training be beneficial? Discussing these issues should give you some indication to their current happiness at work and their intentions to progress within the business.
MAKE NECESSARY CHANGES
Seek to receive feedback on the way things are going within your workforce. Have an open mind when collecting this feedback and see it as a useful tool to boost overall productivity and morale.
If comments are generally positive, great! But try not to get complacent and maybe consider a fun team-building activity to keep spirits high. If comments are negative, you may need to address some core operations. Listening to your employees will help to build trust, but acting on feedback shows a genuine commitment to your team.
MIX IT UP
Whilst co-workers being great friends can be good for business at times, it can also be risky if one becomes unhappy at work. Not only can morale be affected, but alliances can be made. And when friends leave, others might follow. Aside from finding out why employee A is unhappy, it could also be a good idea to mix up dynamics at work. FEEDBACK BEFORE FAREWELL
If your employee does ultimately decide to move on, it would be a good idea to schedule an exit interview. This offers the perfect opportunity to find out why your employee has decided to leave.
CREATE A CONTINGENCY PLAN
Assume that everyone could leave at some point. By having a contingency plan in place for your workforce, you can feel more prepared in the event of people leaving. Is there room to reshuffle tasks for an interim period whilst you’re hiring? Are you training your staff so that they can potentially step up and graduate to a new role should one become available?
Whilst recognising that continued, longer term regional intervention and strategy is required to address a skills and labour shortage, incorporating the above simple steps into an overall “People Strategy for your own business should go some way to ensure that once you have attracted the right skills within your business you keep them. The HR Dept Newcastle can provide support to develop the right strategy for your business.
