In a recent survey, we have asked a roundtable of People & Culture experts from various industries and varying company sizes a few questions regarding Employee Retention.

Firstly, we wanted to look into how well People & Culture are doing regarding employee retention, whether they track employee retention and how frequently they do so.

Secondly, we looked at their use of technology to assist them today in this task and how they anticipate this will look like in the future as well as primary challenges involving technology in HR and People & Culture today.

Finally, we asked what they see as the primary causes of poor employee retention, the best advice they have given, used and/or heard to retain employees and what a good employee retention goal is.

Read on to learn more about how you can improve your employee retention based on the industry People & Culture experts.

1. Measure employee engagement frequently.

Our roundtable survey among the 19 People & Culture experts showed that there is a common understanding that they are doing well currently at retaining their employees with an average score of 3.95 out of 5. This aligns well with the question of whether they are indeed tracking their employee retention rate. Here, 74% of the respondents say they have those numbers available to them.

Now, what is interesting is that they also put an emphasis on the frequency of measuring employee engagement. Only 2 of the respondents reported that they measure yearly or less frequently than that. On the other hand, more than half of the respondents say that they measure employee engagement quarterly or monthly. So, one element to having success in retaining your employees is to measure relatively frequently.

If you measure employee engagement twice a year or less frequently you will compromise on a consistent response rate which means that the data quality isn’t as good as it could be.

This is also the case if you measure more frequently than weekly where you risk that the employees are overwhelmed by the surveys also taking away valuable time spent on their day to day tasks.

You will experience that it’s difficult to be proactive in your leadership when the data is available at a lower frequency than monthly. The data will simply be out of date when you will have access to it, and that’s a shame when you have invested in valuable insights into your employees’ well-being levels.

Catching stress signals amongst your employees in time with a low frequency is equally difficult. This means that you have a higher risk of employees leaving your company due to stress. You already know how much you invest in your employees and the fact that losing talents is really costly. So, to improve your employee retention, you must measure your people data relatively frequently.

2. Use a People Analytics software today.

In the survey, the People & Culture experts score, on average, 3.16 out of 5 when asked how good they currently are at using technology to assist them in their workplace. Going forward they expect to significantly improve the use of technology to assist them. They anticipate that in 12 months from now, they score an average of 4.16 out of 5. So, by investing and implementing new technologies measuring employee well-being, stress, and eNPS they anticipate a significant improvement of their employee retention rate.

The survey also reveals that the People & Culture experts think that the bottom 3 challenges involving technology in HR and People & Culture today are “The technology doesn’t solve our needs.” (79%), “The technologies are not good enough.” (68%), and that “The technology is moving too fast.” (63%). So, there is no issue with the solutions available today. Then, where does the challenge lay?

Interestingly, 79% and 68% of the People & Culture experts say that "The technology selection process." and "The roll-out to employees and managers." is among the top 3 primary challenge involving technology in HR and People & Culture today, respectively.

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So, how do you reach the anticipated improvement 12 months from now? You must scope the software solutions in the market and be critical in how these companies will ensure a meaningful implementation that actually gives you an opportunity to act on the value that is created with the data insights.

3. Poor leadership causes poor employee retention.

When we asked the People & Culture experts what they feel are the primary causes of poor employee retention, about half of them pointed to poor leadership. Some other areas that voice causing poor employee retention included a lack of focus on culture, lack of development and recognition of employees, lack of transparency in the organization and bad onboarding.

Figen Cayan, Chief of Staff at A.P. Moller - Maersk, says that the primary cause of poor employee retention is “Not being aware of the root causes for employees leaving, meaning not tracking onboarding and the well being of the employees.”

Using People Analytics software tools such as Zoios gives companies of tomorrow an opportunity to equip your leaders with the necessary means to be heroes of the workplace. Through Zoios, leaders can see the root causes for poor well-being for each of the 8 drivers of well-being segmented on department, seniority, generation, location and more.

You must help your leaders acquire the means to be great leaders so they can ensure a great work environment in terms of employee well-being and stress levels.

Further, we asked the experts what the best advice they have given, used, and/or heard to retain employees. The answer was very clear: Put people first, listen to the employees and make sure to establish a great relationship with them.

Anna Gullstrand, Acting CEO and Chief People & Culture Officer at Mentimeter, says that the best advice on retaining employees is to “build a collaborative culture where people are and feel included. Create comittment to reach a common purpose, together.”

To succeed with building a collaborative culture, leaders must be well-equipped to act on the people data insights. Besides being a software solution, Zoios offer Manager Workshops designed to work with the people data insights from the platform. This significantly improves the success rate with creating alignment to reach a common purpose together.

Finally, we wanted to understand what the experts think constitutes a good employee retention goal. The answers were also very clear: Happy employees that feel engaged, a sense of growth, and a sense of belonging. Some pointed out that a specific target KPI is between 5-10% turnover rate.

A part of building a collaborative culture to reach a common purpose together is to look at the employee journey as a whole. Explore our Employee Journey Map Template to see how you can get the full overview of the entire employee journey in your organization below.

Summary.

The People & Culture experts firstly pointed out that measuring employee engagement frequently is advantageous to consistently get a high response rate, being proactive on the feedback, and catching stress signals before it’s too late.

Secondly, they anticipate that investing and implementing a People Analytics software such as Zoios measuring employee well-being, stress, and eNPS will significantly improve their employee retention rate. 

Finally, they highlighted that the primary causes of poor employee retention are poor leadership, a lack of focus on culture, development, and recognition of employees. You must help your leaders acquire the means to be great leaders so they can ensure a great work environment in terms of employee well-being and stress levels.

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