In the last year and a half, millions of employees from multiple sectors around the world have joined a mass exodus from the workplace. Many have tried explaining the mass exodus, but reports indicate it may be due to inadequate salaries, limited career advancement, poor work-life balances, general unhappiness with management or the company and numerous other reasons.
This so-called Great Resignation, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, has turned employment into a worker’s market. TikTok users have coined phrases such as quiet quitting and “act your wage” as employees find community with others who don’t feel properly valued or appreciated by their workplaces.
As employees decide what’s right for them, employers are having to reconsider what actually makes their company worth working for. If you feel like your business may be at risk of losing top talent, or you have already begun losing your best workers to the Great Resignation, it is probably time to consider some employee retention strategies. Here are 15 effective strategies to boost employee job satisfaction and help you hold on to your best workers.
1. Offer Competitive Base Salaries or Hourly Wages
“Offering a wage worthy of sacrifice and hard work should be the number one priority when making your employees feel their work is valued. Proper compensation is far and away more important than any other item on this list; you will not retain employees effectively unless you pay them what their time is worth.” Says Selda Kaplan, CEO & Co-Founder at TaxLeopard
Not only should employees be paid fairly for their time and work, they should also be able to afford the cost of living where they live, their wages should be regularly adjusted for rising inflation and they should be additionally compensated as their experience level with the work grows. Additionally, every time their responsibility increases, so too should workers’ reward increase.
2. Let Your Employees Work From Home
According to Upwork’s “Future of Workforce Pulse Report,” 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely in 2025—an increase of nearly 90% since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote work isn’t just convenient to reduce the spread of disease, but has been shown to make employees happier and more productive at work. With modern technology, working entirely (or even partially) from home is possible in a vast array of industries.
While more research needs to be done on the long-term effects of remote work, Upwork’s report shows positive effects of work-from-home include a reduction of nonessential meetings, increased schedule flexibility, commute elimination, fewer distractions and greater autonomy. When your employees do not have to spend time sitting in traffic, stressing about child care or losing productivity due to scheduling issues or lengthy meetings, they will be more productive and happier.
“Remote work will not likely be a permanent solution for many businesses, and more and more people return to offices each month, but offering flexible work-from-home options may be an incentive to keep the best employees with your company for the long run.” Says Laura Allen, Senior E-commerce Support Specialist at Splash About
3. Provide Flexible Scheduling and Reduced Workdays
Along with offering remote work, studies from the Society for Human Resource Management also show businesses offering more flexible work options maintain significantly better worker retention. Even before the pandemic made work-from-home a norm, a 2019 study showed nearly two-thirds of workers found themselves more productive outside of a traditional office due to fewer interruptions, fewer distractions and less commuting. Creativity can’t always be turned on like a faucet, so offering your employees flexible hours encourages them to find the times they will be most efficient and productive to focus attention on the work.
“Reducing the hours in your workday or work week can actually increase employee productivity and encourage more employee retention. A 2014 study by Stanford University found productivity enters a steep decline after a worker exceeds 50 hours of work per week. While we often think workaholics who are the first to arrive and last to leave are more dedicated and productive, that is not necessarily the case if much of the productivity in those hours is lost to burnout or exhaustion.” adds Holly Darani, the Content Head at UNAGI Scooters
4. Encourage and Promote a Work-Life Balance
Fourth on our list of key retention strategies for businesses is to encourage and promote a good work-life balance—not just for your employees, but for yourself, too. Especially after the pandemic drastically changed how employees value work, more and more workers cite work-life balance as the reason they consider new jobs or the reason they have refused opportunities.
“That work-life balance could come by means of remote work, flexible scheduling or reduced workdays, as mentioned above, or simpler acts such as encouraging employees not to check email or answer work questions via phone unless at work or on the job. Respecting employees’ time away from work is key to maintaining a healthy working relationship with them.” adds Rowland Alexander, founder of Which Pad
5. Recognize and Reward Your Employees for Their Work
Employees who feel appropriately recognized and rewarded by workplaces are much easier to retain long term, but studies also show those employees will work harder and be more productive. Unfortunately, over 80% of American employees say they don’t feel recognized or rewarded. A report by the Brandon Hall Group found companies that prioritize recognizing their employees multiple times per month are 41% more likely to see increased employee retention and 34% more likely to see increased employee engagement.
“There are numerous ways to recognize and reward your employees, but it’s important to make sure you prioritize both social recognition and monetary rewards. It feels good to not only be recognized for our work, but to be publicly recognized, as it helps everyone know when others are appreciated, too. Financial rewards, whether in the form of straightforward cash, gift cards or even other perks such as paid time off, are among the most important and most successful rewards you can offer an employee. Consider asking employees open-ended questions about what they’d like in terms of rewards, too.” speaks Jon Lynn, founder of My Office Pod
