As a business owner, you have a vision for your company; you know where you want to take it, what values it has to have and what kind of culture you have surrounding your company. Your employees also play a massive part of this; they are the strong work force that keeps the wheels of the company spinning forward.

The last thing you want to be doing is to keep wasting time turning over best employees and hiring new ones to replace them, there are many reasons for this. The main issue is that it actually costs the company quite a lot in monetary value to keep firing and hiring employees. It also means that the new employees have to take time to get accustomed to their new workplace, time to get to know other employees and the company culture. This makes productivity levels quite low whereas if you could retain your employees, there is not just a cost and time benefit, it also has so many long term benefits.

Tactics to retain your employees

1. Provide perks

Many large companies have special benefits for their employees, mainly along the lines of free phones, company car, health care paid, etc. It doesn’t even have to be massive benefit packages; it could be something as simple as free canteen food for lunch, travel paid or anything small you can think of. It’s the thought that counts and these little extras certainly will be valued by the employees. At Apple Inc. they are known to give employees free products even if they do not need them in their line of work, small bonuses like this can really help out an employee’s life.

2. Get personal and involved

Many complaints from unhappy employees include the fact they are not happy that their managers are not involved with them at all, they are referred to as ‘ghost managers’, you won’t hear from them and this type of management almost creates a barrier between you and your employers. This is very important in small businesses to create a relationship between you and your employees if you are a manager because it is more noticeable there rather than a large enterprise where it is impossible most of the time.

3. Invest into your best employees

These people are working to help you build your dream; you should be treating them as royalty. Employees that get sent on specialised training courses have reported to have a much higher level of satisfaction because they are personally getting new skills and experience as a part of their job role within a company. It also helps with your company because you will start to notice that your workforce is more skilled.

4. Create open communication lines and make sure expectations are set out

To help level with your employees while ensuring everybody is on the correct path and knowing what they are expected to do, holding weekly meetings with your employees is a great way to connect with them and give time to reflect on the tasks that have been set to see whether they are being done correctly and to iron out any problems that somebody may have.

Being available to your employees is a key process and is essential when creating a work environment that is relaxed and comfortable.

5. Delegating the HR processes to a HR professional

Sometimes as a manager you just simply will not have enough time as you want in a work day to get fully involved with your employees as much as you would like to, if this is the case then you should look into hiring a Human-resources professional that can take care of the entire employee management system to ensure that employee benefits, perks and other related tasks are being taken care of. This takes the pressure of off you and also ensures that employees are getting the best attention and treatment they possibly can.

Bhav Seera has been working with London Management Centre since October 2015 and is a young aspiring digital marketer who is still eager to master the field. London Management Centre offers corporate training courses in London and Dubai in many areas, specialising in soft skills such as leadership, management, HR, PR, etc.