How talent retention can reduce HR-costs and improve company’s reputation

It is difficult to imagine a thriving company with high staff turnover, especially when well-trained and skilled workers are the one to leave first. To become successful, a company requires to pay attention to talent retention, otherwise all accomplishments will be temporary, and HR costs will be growing constantly.

What is talent retention?

Talent retention is one of the key factors of a company's success. It stands for a number of actions and strategies a company needs to implement in order to reduce employee turnover and to keep experienced professionals. Typically, it is associated with the salary increase, as salary affects the attractiveness of the position significantly. However, the amount of money that an employee gets is only one part of job satisfaction. The usage of various talent retention strategies is beneficial for companies in many ways.

Why is it important?

To maintain a company's image and culture, it is crucial to understand that talented, hard-working and ambitious workers contribute to the business success. Replacement of qualified personnel is expensive and time consuming as it is difficult to source new candidates, especially if the highest level of qualification is required. 

Statistically, workers who stayed in an organization for more than a year are more likely to work effectively and in compliance with the company's core values. They also tend to have better connections with coworkers and administration, so it makes all management tasks observantly easier for them.

Improved talent retention allows to have not only a high-performing loyal team of reliable experts, but also to attract best candidates in the future. Company’s image is created through its reputation, and high reputation is directly connected to the workers’ satisfaction level.

Talent retention strategies

• Positive onboarding experience. The perception of the place of work in a positive, joyful manner starts as soon as a person becomes a member of a working team. Introduction to the company’s culture, working ethic and communication style should be provided at the very beginning, and HR managers need to make it as smooth as possible. Positive attitude of new workers grows into a loyal and trustful approach in the future. 

HR managers have to be respectful and patient regardless of age, gender, culture and qualification of the new employee. Constant help from a mentor, an overview of the company's structure and clear instructions about responsibilities are essential to create a positive image. 

Pay attention to employees who are non-native English speakers, especially if it is their first working experience. They might need help with business English, so additional training with some typical conversational cases or writing tasks can be a handful. They will appreciate and remember such help in the long-term, and their dedication to the company will grow respectively. 

• The design of the company. Every organization is to have a clear model of its core values, ideas and concepts. When a company does not have an established image and an overall objective, employees find it difficult to associate themselves with it or to differentiate it from other companies on the market.

Define unique features of the company. It is recommended to support every point you choose with evidence, for example, it can be a successful project, positive survey results, and workers' feedback. In such a manner people will develop an associative array connected to the company and thus pay more attention to it. Workers will feel the significance of the projects they work on and the respectability of the organization, which means they are more likely to stay in it. 

• Learning, development, growth. Stagnation is the biggest enemy of satisfaction. To feel happy, workers need to see that they become better, improve their skills and learn something new constantly. A lack of notable improvement affects self-esteem and prospects of professional development, which results in two possible scenarios: the worker experiences doubt in personal skills, accomplishments and productivity, feels not suitable for the company and wants to leave because of this permanent frustration; the worker blames company on the lack of opportunities and looks for better options. 

In order to avoid this, the administration of any organization needs to provide learning opportunities and a feedback system. Employees may find it interesting to develop not only specific professional skills, but also their ability to communicate with colleagues and clients, especially if the company is oriented to the international business sphere. 

Training in public speaking, where your workers learn how to control their voices, gestures and overall mannerism, as well as the presentation of the company, or business language courses are great options which will help workers to see significant improvement of their competence and give them a better connection to the company they work in.

• Creativity and culture. Multicultural teams are great when it comes to creativity, as members of such groups have different backgrounds and it helps them to add unexpected but desired suggestions. People are thrilled to work with foreign specialists as it broadens the horizons of their knowledge and qualification. Moreover, such experience connects them to new cultures and helps to work more efficiently.

International teams make a company more prestigious, as global connections are considered to be a sign of better quality and great promotion. Employees feel proud to work in international companies, because they observe it as a marker of their own success. 

To guide the work of a multicultural team successfully, managers need to understand cultural differences which may affect the working process. All benefits of multiculturalism can be diminished by a lack of common ground and negative atmosphere at the working place. Managers need to be trained appropriately, so that they know how to direct international groups in the correct direction. If workers are treated equally and their cultural background is taken into consideration, they will cooperate more effectively and feel happier at work. This satisfaction will erase any thoughts about leaving or changing the place of work. 

Conclusion

The value of highly qualified specialists is not something that should be questioned. Companies that improve their talent retention and implement new strategies for it ensure their stable results and constant development of their business. Satisfaction of workers should be a number-one priority in any organization.