How do you retain employees in 2021?

It will come as no shock that in the past few months, job candidates have had leeway to take the wheel a bit more during the recruitment process. Employers are clutching at straws to hold on to their existing employees, in hopes of not having to face the highly competitive, candidate-led market that stands right now. To put it simply, the number of job vacancies open outweighs the number of candidates looking currently.  

With the pressure on to retain your most talented employees, it is important now more than ever provide the benefits required to retain their engagement, and therefore loyalty to your company. 

And if it wasn’t challenging enough, that little thing called “Covid” put another spanner in the works. Post Covid-19 and the rise of the remote working has nearly doubled, meaning providing benefits can become an even bigger challenge.

Retaining means engaging

It can be difficult to tarnish all staff members with the same brush with retention strategies because, quite simply, everyone is different.

But you know this, that’s why you’re here.  

You know as well as we do that providing a voucher for a coffee subscription to Costa Coffee may be a great benefit for one employee, but not for the other. 

It is challenging to accommodate everyone, so instead why not strip things back and look at the commonalities in your employees.

Or maybe… 

…just look at the things that really matter to a human being. 

Health & Wellness 

To make your business an attractive proposition to potential employees, and to retain the staff you have, your focus should be on health and wellbeing.

This element should be your #1 priority in the workplace. 

Cast your eyes to the stats on your left… we’ll let you do the maths.

To make your business an attractive proposition to potential employees, and to retain the staff you have, your focus should be on health and wellbeing.

This element should be your #1 priority in the workplace. 

Cast your eyes to the stats on your left… we’ll let you do the maths.

“Studies have shown that regular exercise is great at combatting memory loss and maintaining the brain’s general health and problem-solving skills.“

Government Statistics

There are many things that contribute to making happy and healthy employees. 

Let’s look at two of the most important ones, starting with mental health support in the workplace:

Mental health support

As a society, we have been doing a great job at removing the stigma attached to mental health. It now stands that between 66%-71% of people would now feel comfortable talking about their mental health issue. Don’t be fooled though… there are plenty of people who shy away from admitting their feelings.

Therefore, a company-wide solution such as a mental health awareness and fitness plan would enable those to participate if they don’t feel ready to reach out themselves.

Fitness

If your staff members are mentally or physically unfit, they aren’t in a position to drive business growth or productivity. Encouraging fitness does wonders at empowering your workforce to be more positive, and happier at work.

Staff members who handle numbers and data day in, day out, would definitely benefit from regular breaks and physical activities. Ingraining the “work smarter, not harder” ethos.

Seamless communication

Connected with technology

To look at retaining employees means to look at strategies for engaging employees. To do this, you need to ensure you have a good stream of communication between you and your team members. Engagement can be a challenge in this remote working climate.

Ensure that your team stay connected through the power of technology.

This will allow them to harness your company culture and make them feel within “reach” of the team – regardless of their location. 

Here’s a few ideas:

• Streamline communication with internal comms software such as MS Teams 
• Keep everyone on the same page with an effective project management system  
• Increase seamless work effort through cloud or file sharing software 
• Establish regular check-ins with the whole team and individually, too

By embracing some of these methods, your employees will feeling immersed and integrated within your company on a day-to-day basis.  

Keeping it social

Off the back of building good communicative foundations comes the need for keeping it social between you and your employees. 

Remote working has many benefits, but employees who work solo do commonly experience feelings of loneliness, and miss working as part of a team.

There is plenty you can do about that!

Events like virtual team socials and coffee breaks, games, video chats, and virtual team-building activities are easy to implement…

…and make a huge difference to staff morale!

Stress at work

The Health & Safety Executive recorded that in 2018/19, nearly 30 million days of work were lost in the UK due to employees suffering from general ill-health and workplace injuries.

A further report showed that there were also 1.4 million people cited as suffering from workplace-related stress.

With the Covid pandemic bringing a huge wave of stress to most of us, it makes sense to do what you can as an employer to relieve the stress and make work (wherever that may be) a happier place.

Work/life balance and the power of flexibility 

One thing that has become inherent is the importance of establishing a healthy work/life balance. It is also actually one of the best things about remote working.  

Use it to your advantage. 

Mandatory meetings aside, consider granting your remote workforce the flexibility to choose their working hours. This steps up work/life balance, and research has shown that employees able to choose their own work schedule is very positively received. Trusted working relationships are crucial for successful remote working.  

How we can help

Here at Linnie Fitness we provide the tools and resources to increase your employees’ wellness and fitness.

Enter – virtual fitness classes for your business, at a time to suit how you work. The workplace incentive to get everyone moving and spread the feeling of wellbeing company-wide.

No restrictions to locations, so all your employees, regardless of where they are, can access the fitness classes and make steps towards enhanced wellbeing.