Solutions to 3 Workplace Challenges That Affect Your Retention Rate

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workplace challenges

Owners and employees have countless workplace challenges, so many that it's impossible to list all of them. Underpinning many of these challenges is a central issue — owners retaining their staff by creating a positive workplace culture.  

 

We will discuss three workplace challenges that all relate to the central issues of retention. We've provided answers to these issues and include links to valuable resources where you can find out more information about some of the solutions we've recommended. 

 

1. Insufficient Pay  

 

Money is vital to employee satisfaction. If your staff is not earning enough to enjoy the lifestyle they want, then you risk losing them to another company. This makes it a key challenge for both your business and employees. 

 

The basic approach to overcoming the challenge of your employees not earning enough money is to pay them more. Of course, you could increase their salary, but that is not the only remuneration strategy available to you: 

  • Bonuses: introduce regular bonuses, such as monthly, quarterly, or yearly. 
  • Performance-related pay: incentivize your staff by rewarding them for good results. 
  • Perks: something tangible, like a company car, that has a precise cash value.

Decide which of these methods works best for your company and then put them in place. Doing so addresses the challenge of employee satisfaction and retention. These two things work in tandem, but owners need to appreciate how serious the issue of retention is. In fact, some U.S. studies claim it costs 6-9 months' salary to replace employees, which highlights the cost of having low retention rates. 

 

2. How to Work Efficiently 

 

Efficiency is a challenge for both you and your staff. You need to make sure your employees work as effectively as possible to ensure they provide value for the money you pay them. Your team needs to ensure they work at their best to do their jobs properly. It's a challenge that requires work from both sides. 

 

There are many things you can do to address the challenge of work efficiency, and there are plenty of tools/items that can help you and your employees. We've listed examples that help individual employee and departments within your business: 

  • Time tracking tools: let your employees record the time spent on their tasks and projects — this article explains how your business can benefit from using HourStack.  
  • Company cards: This makes your bookkeeping team more effective because any company items your workers purchase are recorded electronically — this page highlights the features available from a Company On Tap card. 
  • Marketing platforms: allows your staff to schedule social posts — this post details how you can use Hootsuite to automate social media marketing  
  • Grammar plugins: enables your workers to catch grammatical errors and make their content more readable — this resource explains the value of installing Grammarly 
  • Fuel cards: This makes your accounts payable team more efficient because your fuel expenses can be settled via a single invoice — this guide covers the key benefits your business gets from using a Texaco fuel card.
  • SEO software: an efficient way of giving your teams the data they need to know what your customers are searching for and how to optimize your content so they can find it — this feature covers how to use SurferSEO to create content that ranks. 

These are a wide range of tools and items that help tackle various challenges related to efficiency. Select the right ones for your business and give your employees and teams the resources they need to work more effectively. If you don't, then your employees might not complete their work as effectively as you need them to. The result of which could be you let them go, or they decide to leave. Either way, it damages your retention rates. 

 

3. Poor Career Opportunities

 

One of the most common challenges every business faces is that their employees don't feel they have career opportunities. It's an issue that can be addressed by taking a mature, strategic, and inclusive approach to managing your company. 

 

Providing career opportunities to your employees boils down to having a clear idea of where you want your business to go and the roles you need at each stage of development. Once you have this in place, you can make it relatable to your staff in the following ways:

  • Business updates: explain to your employees where the company is headed and how you plan to get there, highlighting each stage's job opportunities. 
  • Career plans: clear strategies that maturely map out the steps your employees can take to achieve their career goals [align these to your company's growth.]
  • Monthly 1-2-1s: line managers check in with their team members individually to make sure they're happy with the professional direction they're taking. 

There may be administrative and maintenance costs to introducing them, but the value of doing so is enormous. This claim is based on a U.K. report that found career development to be the number one reason employees leave their jobs. With this in mind, investing resources into tackling this challenge is money well spent for your business. 

 

Money, efficiency, and career opportunities are three challenges every owner has to contend with. We've clearly explained how important they are and provided you with some actionable solutions. 

 

Are your retention rates low? Do you have a high turnover? Your workplace culture might be the reason. DH offers on-site & virtual solutions to help you [re]design your culture so your business & employees can thrive. 

I WANT THIS FOR MY TEAM

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