The Employer Engagement Guide: 3 Ways to Keep Your Best Employees

Welcome to Part Five of the Employer Engagement Guide. Losing staff? Are your staff retention strategies not working for you right now? Here are three ways to retain your best people.

Are your staff retention strategies working for you right now? The latest stats show resignations in the UK are at the highest rate in 20 years.

UK Labour Force Survey (LFS) revealed that 1.02 million workers shifted from one job to another between July and September 2021. Of these, 391,000 were resignations – these figures are the largest spikes LFS has ever witnessed.

And now, the Great Resignation or “Big Quit” is happening among UK workers – according to a recent survey, they’re quitting their jobs at an alarming rate.

And in the USA, the latest figures show that employees are quitting at the highest rate since 2021, while another report states that 67 per cent of the 50,000 US employees earning over $100,000 plan on leaving in the coming six months.

Retaining talented employees should be a top priority 

These are scary statistics – almost two-thirds of your workforce could hand in their notice in the next six months. The number of people out of work is at a 50-year low, and as such, there are more job choices than ever on the market for passive and active job hunters. As the data shows, this means a challenging environment for retaining staff.

Companies have to work super hard to keep employees engaged and dedicated, so if you haven’t thought about this yet, now’s the time to assess your retaining talent plans – especially those targeting the retention of your best workers.

A recent report stated that 46 per cent of newly appointed candidates will fail in 18 months, and just 19 per cent will attain success. Thus, preventing your best workers from leaving in the first instance is key.

To help you keep your best workers, we’ve pulled together three foolproof staff retention strategies:

How to retain staff 

1.  Pay them a salary above the market rate

A brilliant tactic to retain your workers involves paying them a salary above the market rate or just paying them a higher than usual bonus. Not only does this make staff feel appreciated for their exceptional involvement, but it also has fundamental retention value. In other words, it makes it tricker for your employee to find the same pay elsewhere or a company that pays anything higher.

Given that they’re unverified and unfamiliar to new would-be employers, your worker is deemed too expensive, and chances are, they won’t even look at them.

This is often the case with larger firms in which applicants need to squeeze into tight budgets as specified by human resources – firms like this may choose to dismiss these expensive candidates, despite the inherent value the person may have as a key player.

The team at Market Talent has witnessed this staff retention method work well in practice. Because the key performer is striking it rich and happy at the company, they remain in their existing position a lot longer – and only move on when the right opportunity comes along. However, these opportunities become restricted due to the figure they’re being paid.

2.  Know what drives your staff

Understanding your best worker’s motives go a long way in retaining employees. In which case, use staff meetings such as routine performance reviews and off-the-record chats as chances to get inside the heads of your favourite staff members.

Consider asking the following:

• What do you enjoy about the company and your position right now? What parts of your role might you change? Have you got any internal frustrations? (Asking questions such as these means you’re in the know about any adverse driving factors that may instigate a decision to leave. Next, you can eradicate these while strengthening the good things).
• What do you want to get out of your existing position in the company? Where do you want to be in a couple of years, whether you’re in this company or not? (It’s worth knowing what all your team members want from their careers).
• Have there been any changes in your personal circumstances that have affected your work-related priorities? (For instance, if your worker has become a parent recently, think about introducing flexible working options to reflect their new lifestyle).

As well as showing you’re a thoughtful manager that cares about your worker’s wellbeing and career, you’re also gathering info to enable your staff member to get where they want to so they can be happier in your organisation – be it in their existing job or moving to a new job or department.

While it may seem counterintuitive to ask probing questions (as you may not want to hear the answers), it’s crucial not to be egocentric about the role or your department. So, we advise considering the broader interests of your business and your worker – and don’t be afraid of planning and managing change.

It’s better to enact employee retention strategies such as this than to find yourself forced to respond to change when one of your favourite workers leaves abruptly.

3. Speak to your recruiter for retention of talent ideas

While it may sound nonsensical, finance recruiters like us would rather see our clients retaining top talent than losing their top performers. As we see it, it won’t be long before a firm with an abnormally high staff turnover sees its reputation turn negative. In turn, this makes it more challenging to attract top talent.

As a leading banking recruitment company, we love to stake our reputation on placing the finest candidates at the finest firms.

So, feel free to ask our opinion about specific profiles and roles and what best practices we see in the market. This is just one of the many services we provide for our clients.

Contact us

If you’re a finance, banking, or fintech company that cares about talent attraction and retention, and want to talk about these talent retention strategies, give us a call on +44(0)20 7971 7700 or drop us a line at: info@markettalent.co.uk.