Last Updated on May 15, 2023 by Umer Malik
There are many reasons why staff retention is of major concern to businesses. The process of recruiting new talent can be expensive and time-consuming, and onboarding new people and getting them up to speed can also reduce productivity. Additionally, it is never positive when staff you have invested in leave to offer their talents to other enterprises – who may even be your competitors.
A Sense of Progress
There are a lot of factors that affect whether staff want to stay, and while salary, benefits, and working culture are certainly included in these, one of the main ones is a sense of there being an opportunity to make progress as a professional. This is something you, as a business, can foster through a solid approach to training and performance management.
Why Staff Value Performance Management
It may seem like things like appraisal processes mainly exist to rectify any issues with someone’s performance and that for staff who are performing well or even excelling, they are simply a formality. However, when you apply strategic human resource management and use performance reviews as an opportunity to discuss things like the next steps in that person’s career with your company, training they may want to undertake, and projects they are interested in getting involved in, performance reviews can form part of your overall mentoring of the individual.
This allows staff to have a review that not only looks at what they have already done but what they will be working towards next and how they will be supported in that. This can be an important way to keep them feeling like their future in the short to medium term, or even the long term, remains with your company.
Why Investing in Training is Great for Staff Retention
Some businesses see training as an overhead that they only spend when they need to, for instance, to teach staff how to use new software they are adopting or complying with things like health and safety regulations. However, businesses that invest in professional training outside of the essentials tend to see great results both in performance and staff retention.
Giving staff opportunities to learn new skills that can allow them to progress into more senior or technical roles within your company can be a better way to fill those roles than hiring from outside and offering staff training programs that have a perceived value to them (for instance organizational development certificate programs) is a strong sign that they are with a company that values and invests in them.
Providing staff with assistance in seeking out further education, such as offering grants or study leave to progress further in your company, can also be a great way to invest in your people.
Staff retention is something smart business owners realize the importance of and strive to improve. Good HR practices, an appraisal process that is forward-looking, and a generous approach to training can all be key to making sure your most talented staff aren’t tempted away.
