It is understandable that employers are struggling to retain their stars when they are not in a financial position to provide the opportunities of promotions or monetary perks such as commissions and bonus’. The pressure is on for managers to ensure they can keep their best employees engaged and committed to their role, without a cost. Creating a culture where your employees feel valued enough to stay is key in retaining your top performers. We will be discussing some great ways to ensure commitment and loyalty in the workplace.
Praise your Staff
Celebrating your employees’ achievements and instilling confidence and encouragement is priceless, and often one of the most effective ways in retaining staff and sustaining employee satisfaction. It is often easy to assume that if your staff are performing to a high standard, that employee satisfaction rates are high, after all, there is a significant correlation between high performance and high satisfaction rates. However, this is dangerous assumption. Yes, there is likely to be a strong level of satisfaction amongst your team if their performance is high, however this does not mean that they do not need praise and encouragement to continue on with their efforts. If you become complacent and fail to maintain a strong level of commendation and instil confidence in your employees, you run the risk rapidly jeopardising camaraderie in the workplace. You ultimately chance losing some of your best staff. If you don’t praise them, another employer will.
Challenge your Staff
When your employees are performing to a high standard on a continual basis, do not assume that these employees do not need to be challenged. Ensure you are maintaining engagement and that that your employee’s roles do not become monotonous. Often employers become complacent and take the viewpoint of if the employee is achieving high results in their role, that they must continue doing what they do well. However, in this instance, your employees are likely to begin to find the job tedious and mundane. It is as this point you risk losing your best employees. Set your top performing employees projects that are new to them, or provide them with a higher level of responsibility. Incorporating an element of excitement and originality, is likely to enhance engagement and ultimately increase your chances retaining your top performance- at no cost. Ensure that you reiterate to your employees that providing them with new challenges not to try and overwhelm or overburden them, it is simply a way for them to build upon their experience and enhance their skill set while keeping their role fresh and exciting.
Free Perks
There are some great ways to reward your employees without having to provide monetary bonuses. Concentrate on rewarding your employees with perks that will benefit them in terms of their work life balance or autonomy. For example, for those employees who perform well during the week or hit targets, give them the option to finish work early on a Friday. Not only does this strategy reward your employees for their efforts, it also gives them an incentive to perform to a high standard. In order to determine what rewards employees would benefit from the most, find out what is important to your employees and what they would consider a ‘perk’ of the job, within reason. Once you have established an effective reward scheme, you will find a far greater level of satisfaction and engagement amongst your team.
Tackle Concerns and Frustrations
Top performers may feel anxious or insecure about their future prospects with the company at the point where it is a necessity to cut monetary benefits or freeze salaries. Strongly emphasize the positive outlook for the company’s future and why you remain loyal to the company. Outline the reasons that you feel secure, and encourage your employees to review the benefits to them of remaining loyal to the company.
