5 Effective Strategies for Employee Retention

Employee retention is a delicate balance between good leadership and healthy relationships within the workplace. Benefits, flexible work hours, a constructive feedback system, and opportunities for growth are essential. However, the role supervisors play in employee retention appears to make the most impact.

Here are five ways you can retain employees and avoid turnover:

Anyone in a supervisory or management role is responsible for representing the organization. For the majority of the workday, your employees are dealing directly with you or other management making it vital that you focus on building a positive relationship with your employees. A work environment that is devoid of hostility and tension will undoubtedly increase the chances of retaining your employees.

To unify your team, it's essential that you create a workplace culture unique to your employees to keep them content, motivated, challenged, engaged, and excited to come to work each day. Consider offering rewards, lunches, and advocating for raises and bonuses.

A fair work environment with appropriate treatment of all employees is key to retaining employees. If you become friends with some of the employees and others see you favoring them, there potentially will be a great deal of resentment, contention, and lack of motivation among the least-favored employees. Being their friend and not their boss encourages a breeding ground for a hostile work environment. And in the process, you are likely to not only lose the respect of your employees but lose them altogether.

Focus on giving your employees clear and direct messages about their performance, the team's efforts as a whole, and company updates and changes. Approaching your employees in a demeaning and harsh way will only do more harm than good and significantly decrease productivity. Transparency is vital to the role supervisors play in employee retention.

Allowing open discussions and employee feedback should be seen as a positive thing and not a threat to your role as supervisor. Creating a work environment that encourages open communication, curiosity, and involvement in decision-making processes will motivate employees and increase morale and mutual respect. This openness will enhance creativity, productivity, and will go a long way in retaining your employees.

Your role as a supervisor or manager is not to be taken lightly. You carry quite a bit of responsibility for your team on your shoulders. Employee contentment and team rapport are your responsibility first and foremost. When you lose sight of these, you often lose employees. Remember, as the saying goes, “Employees don't quit companies, they quit managers.”