Employee retention and motivation will have a significant impact on your organization’s level of success. Your best employees are often the ones who have the most opportunities to find satisfying roles outside of your organization. With unemployment so low currently and “high-tech” workers in demand, you need to make employee retention and motivation a priority. Here are four key areas of focus to retain employees:

Pay a market rate or above

It’s import to provide a decent compensation for good employees. This is one area I sometimes see companies be “penny wise and pound foolish” with. One client of ours had a really good product manager and was paying this person a five-figure salary. Within a year of noticing that this product manager was being paid a below market rate, they had, not surprisingly, moved on to another organization. You don’t pay a good product manager, or engineer, a five-figure salary and expect to keep them for long. Pay market rates, or above, for your good employees. With unemployment low and high-tech workers in demand, employees need to be compensated fairly. Before you worry to much about the cost of their salary, think about what it will cost to replace such a good employee.

Show your best employees a growth path

Your best employees want to learn and grow. Be certain to give them opportunities to grow within your organization, or they will find someplace else that has growth opportunities. More than once, during my career, I left organizations to take on greater challenges. While most of my supervisors where smart enough to understand, one clearly did not. Talk with your best employees and find out what their dreams and aspirations are. Give them opportunities to learn new things, challenge them to grow as fast as they can. Also consider implementing a tuition reimbursement program, if you don’t have one currently. Consider having a library of books that make sense for your organization to learn from and let employees check these books out. Give them every opportunity to learn and grow, so they can grow without having to leave.

Provide great training

Over 70% of employees say training influences their decision to stay with a company. Millennials had the most significant results, with 87% of them citing access to training, development and career growth opportunities as being very important to their decision of whether to stay or go. 74% of employees feel they are not meeting their potential due to lack of training and development. Additionally, companies that offer comprehensive training programs have 218% higher income per employee than companies without formalized training. Training is shown, in many studies, to provide improved retention and lower workforce turnover. If you need help developing a training program, just contact us www.singerexecutivedevelopment.com.

Talk to people

Annual reviews are great, but they only happen once a year. Take your best employees out to lunch at least twice a year and really listen. Find out what they like and don’t like about their current position. Learn about their dreams and aspirations. If you are really listening, sometimes you will have to help them find another role outside your organization, but most of the time, you can help them continue to grow and enjoy a great career at your organization. Take retention of your best employees seriously and don’t forget to listen.

The cost of losing an employee is significant. Keep that cost in mind, as you consider the importance of retaining and motivating your employees. What are some ways you retain your best employees? We would love to hear from you: sales@singerexecutivedevelopment.com