Employee
Motivation as the Key to Higher Retention Rates
Employee morale and employee retention go hand in hand. If employees do not feel motivated at work,
they will most likely start to look for new jobs elsewhere. Tracking employee morale is essential for
measuring retention rates within a company. The only precise way to measure employee
morale is fairly easy: ask the employees directly. This can be done using polls, surveys,
suggestion programs, or even informal-type interviews for smaller businesses. The results can be quite shocking. Typically, employees are enthusiastic and
have a high morale when they first start a job, but in a study done by Harvard
Business School, they found that in about 85% of companies, employees’ moral
drastically declines after their first six months on the job. This continues to decline as their tenure
increases.
Employees are often looking for three key goals that
motivate them throughout their employment.
These are equity, achievement, and camaraderie. Equity deals with being respected and treated
fairly in terms of pay and benefits.
Employee achievement is established when employees feel proud of their
job, their personal accomplishments, and their employer. Lastly, camaraderie is generated when
employees have close, productive relationships with other employees. In order to have high retention rates within
a company, employers must ensure that they meet all these goals. Employers and management can do several
things to ensure they meet the employee goals.
Three main practices can be put into place to begin to increase overall
motivation: instilling purpose, focusing on employees, and promoting
transparent communication.
Instilling purpose within a company typically comes from a
dynamic organizational mission statement that gives all employees a reason for
coming to work aside from compensation.
Individual departments can have purpose or mission statements as well
that focus on its main goals. These statements
not only give an employee purpose, but a sense of importance, camaraderie and
belonging as well.
Employers need to focus on employees as individuals to boost
morale within their companies. Providing
employees with recognition, or coaching them for improvement shows them that
the company is showing interest in them and that they are being appreciated for
their work. Receiving recognition for
achievements shouldn’t be overlooked since it is one of the most fundamental
human needs.
Opening channels for transparent communication between
employers and employees is a quick way to boost respect, and thus increase
motivation. When employees feel that
they are respected, trusted, and involved in workplace functions, all three of
their goals (equity, achievement, camaraderie) are met. Transparent communication does not just mean
communicating fully, but listening to and involving employees wherever possible
as well.
Employers often disregard looking at motivation as a factor
of a high turnover rate and retention problems, but motivation problems quickly
permeate into other aspects of the job as well eventually causing the employee
to search for something new. Being aware of motivation levels within a company
is the first step to improving overall retention, not to mention increase
productivity and efficiency as well.
Resources:
Lynne Bard, BA (Honours), C.H.R.P., CES
Human Resources, Safety & Risk Management Experts
Taking the Complexity out of Compliance
President
Beyond Rewards Inc.
Phone: 519-821-7440
Cell: 519-830-7480
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