Retention of Your Best Employees

Retaining key employees is critical to the long-term health and success of your
business. Managers readily agree that keeping your best employees ensures customer
satisfaction, increased product sales, satisfied, happy coworkers, and
effective succession planning and organizational knowledge and learning.

Failing to retain a key employee is costly to the bottom line and creates organizational
issues such as insecure coworkers, excess job duties that coworkers must absorb, time
invested in recruiting, hiring, and training a new employee. Various estimates suggest
that losing a middle manager costs an organization up to 100 percent of their salary. The
loss of a senior executive is even more costly. This is not only because of the lost
revenues but also due to the fact that hiring and training a replacement is costly to your
organization.

Exit interviews do provide one answer because departing employees can provide you
with valuable information you can use to retain the remaining staff. Heed their results
because you'll never have a more significant source of data about the health of your
organization. And better yet perform stay interviews so that you can identify why
people stay with your organization. This information will help you create the culture and
work environment essential if you want to retain your best employees.

Workplace Culture:
Many adults spend most of their time at their workplace. For people working in an
office setting, it is so important to make them feel welcome and at home every single
day. If possible, having an open floor plan is a great way for people to feel like there is
fluency and transparency between coworkers and throughout departments. If you’re
in a traditional office with cubicles, creating workstations with personal or long, bar
length desks is a way to foster team engagement and team work. Employee activities
at work or after work will boost employee morale, and show that the company cares
about wellbeing and fun, not only work responsibilities.
Growth Opportunity:
Investing in an employee is one of the best ways to show that you value their
contributions to the organization. There are multiple ways to invest in your top talent,
such as promoting and providing education opportunities, sending them on a trip to
clear their minds which will in turn enhance their productivity at work, and working on
an honor system that will establish trust and embrace autonomous responsibility.
Provide growth opportunities through working with employees to establish career
goals, create a career plan, and have monthly status meetings where you can provide
feedback and have open conversations to show your top talent that you are investing
in their professional advancement.

Perks:
As mentioned above, sending employees on a trip once they reach their goals also
serves as an awesome perk for employees. They’ll never stop talking about it and will
work hard for the chance to go on another adventure. Gamify the workplace by
hosting contests among teams or between departments for great prizes like trips, gift
cards, free lunch, a day off, or pre-purchased items to get employees excited, boost
morale, and get the competitive mindset rolling. Maybe you could host a video
challenge after instructing employee training who can create the best training video
Lastly financial bonuses are always welcomed.

Flexibility:
Flexible schedules are of increased importance in the digital work age, especially
among millennials. Providing opportunities for remote work and a distributed
workforce is essential. Today’s workforce seeks quality of life and flexibility through
working from home or from anywhere.

Praise:
Always let your employees know that you appreciate them, and notice the strides they
take and goals they accomplish by rewarding their good work. Providing awards to
people who meet a goal shows that you’re noticing the hard work they do every day.
Hosting an annual awards dinner or show gets employees excited. Putting up pictures
of awarded employees gives them public recognition and makes them feel like an asset
to your company.
Employee Commitment in the Workplace:
An organization with good employer-employee relationship will sure achieve their
objectives without any loss out of their business. Employee commitment plays a vital
role in the development of each and every organization all over the world. Employee
motivation, employee engagement, employee loyalty and employee communication are
also some of the factors important in an organization towards achieving their objectives.
A state of emotional and intellectual involvement that employees have in an
organization leads to a greater success.

Employee commitment refers to the psychological attachment of employees to their

workplaces. Commitment to organization is positively related to such desirable
outcomes as job satisfaction and negatively related to such outcomes as absenteeism
and turnover. Employee commitment often referred to as employee engagement or
employee loyalty. Employee commitment is the loyalty and support of workforce
towards the goals of an organization. Employee commitment is the extent to which
employees identify with the organization’s work ethic, co-operate with its goals and
objectives and contribute to corporate performance. The degree to which employees
are committed to their work job and employer can be inferred from their feelings,
attitudes, behavior and actions whilst at work.

To survive in today’s competitive environment, every organization is in need to excel.

To excel, an organization needs to focus on all parts of their management, optimizing
the use and effectiveness of all of its resources. An organization should concentrate
towards the growth of their employees which automatically creates good commitment
of employees towards their goals and objectives. The fact is employee commitment and
engagement towards an organization paves the way for an organization to achieve its
goals and objectives in a standard approach.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior:

Successful organizations have employees who go beyond their formal job

responsibilities and freely give of their time and energy to succeed at the assigned job.
Such altruism is neither prescribed nor required; yet it contributes to the smooth
functioning of the organization. Organizations could not survive or prosper without
their members behaving as good citizens by engaging in all sorts of positive behaviors.

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is a term that encompasses anything positive

and constructive that employees do, of their own volition, which supports co-workers
and benefits the company. Typically, employees who frequently engage in OCB may
not always be the top performers (though they could be, as task performance is
related to OCB), but they are the ones who are known to ‘go the extra mile’ or ‘go
above and beyond’ the minimum efforts required to do a merely satisfactory job. Your
organization will benefit from encouraging employees to engage in OCB, because it has
been shown to increase productivity, efficiency and customer satisfaction, and reduce
costs and rates of turnover and absenteeism.

What is OCB?
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has undergone subtle definitional revisions
since the term was coined in the late 1980s, but the construct remains the same at its
core. Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is referred as set of discretionary
workplace behaviors that exceed one’s basic job requirements. They are often
described as behaviors that go beyond the call of duty. Research of OCB has been
extensive since its introduction nearly twenty years back (Bateman & Organ, 1983).
The vast majority of OCB research has focused on the effects of OCB on individual and
organizational performance.

The Benefits of OCB:

 OCB has been shown to have a positive impact on employee performance and wellbeing,
and this in turn has noticeable flow-on effects on the organization.
There is empirical evidence for the widely-held belief that satisfied workers perform
better, but this is correlational, not causal. However, certain types of performance
primarily those related to citizenship behavior will be affected by job satisfaction. Think
of workers who are cooperative with their superiors and colleagues, willing to make
compromises and sacrifices and are ‘easier to work with’, workers who ‘help out with
the extra little things’ without complaining (or even offering to do so without being
asked) these behaviors are all encompassed within OCB.

Why does OCB seem to have such compelling effects on the individual and the success
of an organization? These are the following suggestions. OCB can:

 Enhance productivity (helping new co-workers; helping colleagues meet deadlines)

free up resources (autonomous, cooperative employees give managers more time to
clear their work; helpful behavior facilitates cohesiveness (as part of group
maintenance behavior).

 Attract and retain good employees (through creating and maintaining a friendly,
supportive working environment and a sense of belonging.

 Create social capital (better communication and stronger networks facilitate accurate)

 Enhance productivity (helping new co-workers; helping colleagues meet deadlines)

free up resources (autonomous, cooperative employees give managers more time to
clear their work; helpful behavior facilitates cohesiveness (as part of group
maintenance behavior).

 Attract and retain good employees (through creating and maintaining a friendly,
supportive working environment and a sense of belonging)

 Create social capital (better communication and stronger networks facilitate accurate
OCB A Worthy Investment:

One of the crucial elements of OCB is the fact that although it is often recognized and
rewarded by managerial staff, employees do not necessarily make the connection
between performing OCB and reward gain

Given that OCB has such a significant impact on the productivity and efficiency of the
organization, and workers do not expect to be reimbursed for their efforts, OCB should
be considered an efficient way of improving organizational profitability and reducing
costs through, for example, lowering rates of absenteeism and turnover.

At the same time, it increases employee performance and wellbeing, as cooperative

workers are more productive, and OCB enhances the social environment in the
workplace.

Five Common Types of Organizational Citizenship Behavior:

 Altruism
 Courtesy
 Sportsmanship
 Conscientiousness
 Civic Virtue

Altruism

Desire to help another individual, while not expecting a reward.

Example:

An employee who drives his colleague to work when his car has broken down
while not expecting money or favors in compensation.
Courtesy
Courtesy is defined as behavior which is polite and considerate towards other
people.

Example:

Asking if a coworker is having trouble with any work related project , and
informing coworkers about prior commitments.

Sportsmanship
Its describes tolerance of nuisance of job.

Example:

An employee who submits proposal to his superior may be expecting it to be

well received and accepted. It is rejected, instead, and the employee displays
good sportsmanship.

Conscientiousness
It indicates employees self-realization enabling him to work beyond the job
requirement.

Example:

Working beyond the official working hours or on holidays for the good of the
company.
Civic Virtue

Behavior that exhibits how well a person represents an organization with

which they are associated and how well that person supports their
organization

Example:

 Speaking positively about the business to friends, family .

 Signing up for business events like charity walking event.

Non-Financial Incentives

Money is not the only motivator, the employees who have more of esteem and
self-actualization need active in them get satisfied with the non-monetary
incentives only.

The incentives which cannot be calculated in terms of money are known as

non-monetary incentives. Generally people working at high job position or at
high rank get satisfied with nonmonetary incentives.

Non-financial incentives are as follow:

 Status
 Organizational climate.
 Career advancement.
 Job enrichment/ assignment of challenging job.
 Employee’s recognition.
 Job security.
 Employee’s participation.
 Employee empowerment.
Financial Incentives

A financial incentive is money that a person, company, or organization offers

to encourage certain behaviors or actions. Specifically, behaviors or actions
that would not otherwise have occurred. The financial incentive, or monetary
benefit, motivates certain behaviors or actions.

A financial incentive may be a monetary benefit that a company offers its

customers or employees. The term may also refer to incentives to encourage
members of the public to cooperate or provide information. These might
include:

 Salaries
 Bonuses
 Overtime
 Commission
 Company cars
 Pensions
 Life Insurance
 Profit sharing
 Accommodation Allowance
 Medical insurance
 Provident Fund
 Leaves
Salary:

Regular money received by an employee from an employer on a weekly,

biweekly or monthly basis. It includes employee benefits such as health and
life insurance, saving plans and Social Security.

Bonuses:

A bonus is a form of pay outside of an employee’s base pay. It's usually given
after the fact to reward specific behavior or for a specific purpose. Bonuses can
play an important role in the attraction, motivation and retention
of employees.

Employers have the opportunity to distribute bonus pay randomly as the

company can afford to pay employees a contract can specify a bonus or the
amount of the bonus pay. Companies pay bonuses to employees to thank and
congratulate them on meeting and achieving specific goals, meeting these
goals resulted in positive happenings for the organization, its employees, and
its customers.

Overtime:

Salaried employees can receive overtime payment just like employees who
work and are paid hourly. Simply putting an employee on salary will not negate
any overtime payments for extra hours worked. Granted, tracking overtime
with salaried employees can be a bit more challenging than with hourly
workers. Salaried employees may be exempt from overtime if they make a
certain amount or perform specific duties that are not recognized as eligible
for overtime pay.

Commission:

A business commission is a certain amount of money paid to perform various

acts or duties. Some employers utilize commissions, particularly in sales roles,
to help employees work harder knowing that they are in charge of how much
money they can make at any given time. However, commission-only pay is not
permitted as employers are required to supplement employees with a
minimum pay standard that is generally required by the state’s minimum wage
 laws. However, this can be tricky since every employee earning commission
makes a different amount than their colleagues. In order to abide by legal
requirements, companies must take into account each employee’s commission
take-home, and make up for the difference if the commission earned is less
than the hourly wage rate for that specific state.

Company Cars:
Most businesses give employees an auto allowance to reimburse them for the
expense of driving a company car for business purposes. The allowance can be
given in addition to providing the car to the employee.

This allowance is not a taxable benefit to the employee, as long as it's given
through an accountable plan. An accountable plan is a set of procedures your
business sets in place to adequately account for the money given to the
employee. The IRS wants to make sure you are not giving employees benefits,
but that these are legitimate business expenses paid by the employee and
reimbursed by you.

Pensions:
Pensions are a way of making sure you get a regular amount of money coming
in during retirement. The government gives tax relief on contributions you pay
in to pensions. The idea is to encourage people to provide for their own
retirement rather than rely on the state.

Many staff value an employer who helps them in ensuring that they have an
income in retirement. While it will not always be the most important
determinant, as workers get older and start looking towards retirement it
could potentially be a key HR issue.

Life insurance:
It pays a lump sum of money in the event of death to the designated beneficiary.
As an employer, life insurance is an inexpensive and easy benefit to offer to
your employees, and it can mean a lot to your employees if many of them have
families or children
Profit Sharing:
The positive impact of profit sharing is that it sends the message that all of the
employees are working together on the same team. The employees have the
same goals and are rewarded equivalently to reinforce this shared service to
customers.

Employees who know that they will receive financial rewards if the company
does well are more likely to be motivated to help the company succeed they
have a vested interest in their company's success.

Accommodation Allowances:
In today’s times, employers are ready to go that extra mile to hire the right
talent, whether from another city or another country. It is not uncommon for
the employer to provide various incentives to attract the right talent and
encourage them to relocate to another city. One such incentive could be free
housing for the employee and her family. Often, the employee identifies the
house of her choice and the employer agrees to pick up the cost of the house
rent. It is helpful to increase the working satisfaction of employees.

Medical Insurance:
Many employees in the public and private sector depend on medical benefits to
support their health and well-being, as well as that of their family members.
Employers big and small offer medical benefits in an effort to maintain a healthy
work environment. Medical benefits significantly reduce the costs associated
with common medical occurrences such as check-up and wellness visits, pre-
natal care or emergency care. Without employee medical benefits, some
workers would not be able to afford the expenses related to necessary medical
care. It is very important to increase the motivation of employees.
Provident Fund:
The Employee Provident Fund (EPF) is one of the most widely-used investment
schemes by the salaried class in the country. The benefits of EPF are extended
to all establishments with 20 or more employees. Provident fund is a very
common retirement plan to benefit the employees, which is contributory in
nature and yields a feeling of participation in employees. The establishment
settles the provident fund in form of trust, required to be register with the
concerned sub-registrar for getting the status of an independent body.
Employee Provident Fund is a very important tool of retirement planning. The
tax free interest (compounding) and the maturity ensures a good growth of your
money. If continued for a very long term, it can help immensely in meeting ones
retirement goal.

Leaves:

There are many types of leave; some are legally mandated to be available, and
others are voluntarily offered by employers. It is very helpful for the employee
satisfaction and it also increase the ability of employees and achieving
company goals in a relax environment. There are following leaves which we
can offered to employees such as:

 Casual Leave
 Sick Leave
 Maternity Leave
 Paternity Leave
 Annual Leaves
 Leave Encashment