Employee retention is definitely a concern of employers in today’s marketplace. That’s because finding and hiring top candidates is already difficult. Adding to that degree of difficulty is the fact that more and more professionals are exploring other employment opportunities.

Earlier this year, a new report from Gallup estimated that U.S. businesses are losing a trillion dollars every year due to voluntary employee turnover.

Then the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics released its own numbers. Specifically, the BLS announced that the number of workers in the United States who had quit their jobs in 2018 was more than 40 million, representing nearly 27% of the workforce.

The Gallup poll report also contained the following information:

• More than half of professionals polled indicated that their manager or employer could have done something to keep them from quitting.
• More than half of professionals polled indicated that in the three months preceding their departure, no one at their employer had spoken with them about their job satisfaction.

These numbers illustrate the severity of the retention problem in the country and how prevalent it is. However, there is a simple secret for achieving better retention rates of your best employees.

That secret is as follows: make sure that what is important to your best employees is also important to your organization.

While this sounds simple—and really is simple—there are some steps that you must undertake in order to ultimately make it effective. Those steps are as follows:

1. Find out what is important to your best employees.
2. Compare what is important to your best employees to what is important to the organization.
3. Make the necessary adjustments to bring what is important to your best employees in line with what is important to the organization.

Of course, to accomplish the third step, don’t focus on changing is most important to the employees. The organization is the one that should make the necessary adjustments. After all, the organization wants to continue reaping the benefits associated with the value that the employees provide.

So what does this look like? First, you must meet with your employees and basically interview them about their level of job satisfaction and what’s important to them both in their job and their career.

• If personal development is important to the employees, then make sure that the organization offers opportunities for personal development.
• If advancing through the company through promotions is important to the employees, then make sure that the organization offers a clear career path and that the path is accessible.
• If working for a company with a clear vision for the future is important to the employees, then make sure that the organization communicates its vision to everybody.

This may seem simple, but for some employers, it’s apparently more difficult than it appears. Retaining your best employees doesn’t have to be difficult, but it is essential for companies and organizations in the current marketplace.

If you’re looking to hire exceptional candidates, we invite you to connect with our team today and see what The Doepker Group can do for your organization.

We also invite you to click here to find out even more about the many services that we offer to employers.