Around the world and in various industries, employers are having difficulties retaining the talented employees of their firms. They don’t know how to improve employee retention and the tech industry isn’t exempted from this.
In a competitive industry like the tech industry, it’s important that employers are aware of why employees stay and leave. It’s also important to understand how to reduce this and increase employee retention.
This is the last article in the series where we have already covered attracting talents and effectively managing them. In this article, we fill you in on what employee turnover is, what employee retention is, and how to retain talent in your startup and reduce employee turnover.
What is employee turnover?
Employee turnover is the total number of employees that have left a company or an organization within a particular period. This includes those who resigned, retired, or were let go. The rate of turnover may vary between different industries.
There are two types of employee turnover, voluntary employee turnover, and involuntary employee turnover. Voluntary employee turnover happens when employees leave a company voluntarily by resigning. On the other hand, involuntary employee turnover is caused by layoffs enacted by management.
What is employee retention?
Employee retention in simple terms is a preventive method taken against employee turnover. This is the company's ability or the processes they take to prevent and curb employee turnover.
Companies that have good employee retention have mastered strategies that encourage retention and keep employees in the company for a long period. High employee retention means that employees are satisfied with the job and the company at large.
Increasing employee retention is important for the growth of the business. Some benefits include an increase in loyalty, a decrease in hiring costs, and promotes a positive company and work culture.
How to reduce employee turnover in your startup
Employee turnover happens as a result of different reasons and doesn’t affect your business positively. Also, it leads to losses over time. Below are steps to take to reduce employee turnover in your startup
- Ensure you hire the right and efficient people for the job.
- Continuously research on market rate.
- Offer competitive salary and excellent work compensation.
- Observe employees and work interaction.
- Create a positive and healthy workspace.
- Reward deserving employees and recognize their efforts.
- Increase work flexibility and improve work-life balance for your employees.
- Create growth opportunities as well as learning opportunities.
How to retain top tech talent in your startup
Reducing employee turnover is important for your business but it isn’t enough to simply reduce the employee turnover. You must know how to retain these employees. You don’t want to lose your top talent. In this section, we fill you in on the various strategies you can implement to retain top talent in your startup.
Build an excellent culture
One way to retain top tech talent in your startup is by creating and building an excellent culture that employees love and value. The tech industry is competitive and top tech talents know this and actively seek companies that have a culture that focuses on their growth. They look for organizations that provide great benefits, promote work-life balance, and a healthy environment.
Take your time to build a culture that resonates with the brand of your company. Make sure it’s employee-oriented and that you invest in the growth of your company and workforce.
Offer employee perks and benefits
Most startups tend to lack the proper funding to offer perks and benefits to their employees. These various benefits are what attracts top tech professional and retain the top tech talent in your startup.
Employee benefits help create a healthy workspace which is necessary for any business. Some examples of employee perks and benefits you can offer include health insurance, job flexibility, retirement plan, gym membership, and parental leave.
Encourage healthy communication within the startup
Business owners must create a workspace that allows for healthy communication between people. You can retain the talent in your startup by creating a space for proper communication in order to learn what your employees value.
Make sure that you’re receptive to feedback and allow improvements in your organization. You can create a space for healthy communication by creating a feedback survey template. This feedback survey should be done routinely. It helps you understand what your company is doing well and the things that need improvement.
Show appreciation to your employees
It’s important to show appreciation to your employees. Ensure that you provide empathy and that you care about them. Appreciation means being concerned with their growth and success, rooting for them, and taking action to guarantee they succeed. Sometimes a simple verbal remark or an appreciation e-mail can do the job, and sometimes you need to increase their salaries or add additional benefits.
Invest in their growth and education
Another great way of retaining the talent in your startup is by nurturing them to grow and evolve. The tech industry is growth-oriented and you must prove to your employees you care about their success by investing in their growth and education. This can help them further their tech knowledge and skills.
You can invest in their growth and education by creating growth opportunities through training. These various training from the best coding bootcamps like App Academy and General Assembly upskill your employees and can help them grow in your organization.
Conclusion
You can retain your employees and reduce your turnover through these strategies. The concepts mentioned above can promote company loyalty. It can also make employees feel valued and respected within the organization.
