Recruitment of staff is hard enough, but the retainment of quality staff is even harder. All too often businesses struggle because of a high staff turnover, with staff leaving and taking their skills with them. This type of turn over results in frequent repeated initial training at the basic level combined with frequent loss of the time and money put into that training. So how do we keep our staff on the payroll for longer than a few months?
Developing a Community
One of the most important aspects of any business is the working atmosphere. Get it right and it can be one of the leading factors in why your staff come to work. Get it wrong and it can really get your staff down, potentially even making them consider taking another job elsewhere. Creating a positive atmosphere that is inviting for new staff and makes existing staff feel secure and valued can be difficult, particularly if you have a large workforce and/or many sites. Take time to read up on new techniques you could try and enforce them slowly so you can monitor the effect accurately.
Developing Basic Skills
Staff feel much more positive about their jobs when they are certain of the expectations on them and they know that they can carry out their duties effectively. Nobody likes to feel that they don’t know what they are doing. Make sure that staff in customer facing roles understand their roles by training using call logging software like Lanonyx. Playback example calls to demonstrate good and bad practice and ask staff to discuss other ways that they could have dealt with this particular issue.
Developing Your Workforce
One of the major reasons for staff leaving and moving onto another job is that they feel there is no chance for progression in their current role. Make sure that this isn’t the case in your company by being clear about the various progression routes on offer and also how to work towards them. Do you want interested parties to work on an evidence portfolio? Will you interview a number of interested parties for upcoming roles using a standard application procedure? Are you planning on simply offering the most deserving candidate a promotion and if so, what are the criteria? Be clear and transparent about your procedures to ensure that everyone feels like they have an equal opportunity.
