Great Tips on Retaining your Star Employees

There’s nothing more disheartening than hearing that your most gifted employee is leaving! In fact, it can have a major impact on the business, particularly if the role is difficult to recruit for in the first place! It can impact upon staff morale and may result in other disenfranchised members of team waving goodbye. But don’t worry, help is at hand! Here are Nuhman’s tips on how to retain star employees.

By Nuhman Sharif

Here are my top tips for retaining star employees!

Give your most valued employees a chance to breathe!

This means allowing them to be creative and giving them the chance to implement their amazing ideas (where possible that is!). Don’t forget to make sure you provide the equipment and tools necessary to make their ideas become a reality!

Promote, promote, promote!

It’s really important to promote your high-flying employees as this demonstrates to them that you value their efforts and contribution to the business.

Pay your star employees well.

It might hurt to put your hand in your pocket, but this can pay dividends in the long run! It’s advisable to pay your high flyers 20-40% above the market rate, and it’s always a good idea to undertake regular salary benchmarking to determine what other companies in the sector are offering for similar roles.

Offer great perks.

Research shows that the benefits package is more important to prospective job seekers than the salary being offered! So, if you want to keep your best employees, offer a great range of meaningful perks. Typical benefits include health and life insurance, but please do your research and ask your employees about which benefits are valuable to them. An impromptu employee survey maybe?

Let your employees have a voice.

If you want to keep your best employees, they need to feel valued. One way of demonstrating this is by giving them the opportunity to raise concerns or make suggestions. Your employees will feel even more valued if you act on the suggestions made, or at least explain why they might not be feasible.

Show great leadership and communicate your vision/trajectory for the business!

Your star employees are more likely to hang around if they feel like they’re being led by somebody who knows what they are doing and has a sound plan to make the business grow and succeed.

Carry out ‘Stay Interviews’.

These are just like exit interviews but are carried out with employees who have been with the business for a considerable amount of time. The idea is to find out why they have chosen to stay with the business and what would make them leave. Stay interviews are a great way of identifying potential problems and pitfalls, meaning you can address them early and prevent employees from jumping ship!

‘Phase out’ your poorest performing employees.

The fact is, high flyers like to be around other positive, energetic individuals so poor performing employees can be a source of negativity within the team. They can even be the reason for your high flyers deciding to leave if they feel they’re being held back.

Don’t micromanage!

Linked to the first point, high performers need to be able to breathe and so are best managed from afar. This means setting them the work they need to do and then leaving them to get on with it! But of course, make sure you check in with them every now and again to ensure everything is on track.

For more advice on employee retention, take a look at Tim’s latest blog or contact the HR180 team.