5 tools for employee retention in the Philippines

By Abhishek Kumar, xoxoday Co-founder

Employees are indeed the back bone of any organization. The growth and success of any organization are decisively influenced by the commitment and loyalty of employees towards their work. Organizations are not leaving any stone unturned to ensure a work environment that will encourage employees to offer more of their capability and potential. Thanks to millennials who have redefined the role of employees from a mere task doer to a brand advocate of the organization for clients, users, and customers.

Companies were only concerned about hiring the best talents on board for a productive business some time back. Over a period, things gradually changed when millennials became the dominant workforce who, unlike their previous generation, won’t get satisfied with a mere comfortable workplace. Excitement at work and scope for creativity became a crucial factor for companies to get best talents onboard.

Workplaces started becoming more jovial with open office culture, vibrant office space, office parties, best packages, special perks, flexible work hours, etc. Though these have managed to attract young talents, HR had to find newer solutions to retain them as the young talent group are job hoppers who get attracted to many of the perks they see.

Employee engagement and reward and recognition are a few terms which started garnering much attention recently. This has enhanced HR’s role to something which is much more than recruitment and payroll, thanks to digitization. The digitization of payroll and documentation has allowed HR to investigate other components that will ensure utmost satisfaction at the workplace for most valuable employees. These have given greater human touch to HR activities at workplace.

Conduct HR surveys

HR surveys conducted frequently will help HR and managers to understand the satisfaction level at the workplace, and where they must fix, streamline things and then assess how well aligned the employees and employer are. Employees who don’t want to directly open up about the problems can also share their genuine views in an anonymous survey.

Make the employees feel that the company do care for them

Offering a competitive package may not always ensure utmost loyalty of employees towards the company. The companies should stand for the wellness of the employees. Providing health insurance coverage for employees and family, extending a small gesture of appreciation on the special occasion of employees like birthdays, anniversaries, parenthood etc. will leave the employees emotionally connected with the organization. A flexible working hour and leave policies will gift the employees a perfect work life balance. The work would be more of a commitment than a liability for the employees who would be happy and satisfied at the work.

Opportunities to showcase their talent at work and outside work

Competitiveness has always been projected as the best way to bring out the best of talents and their capacity. The strong link between recognition and improved performance has been highlighted in a lot of studies. Timely employee appreciation of good work is a catalyst for increased engagement, productivity, motivation, performance, and retention.

 Contribute to employee development

The world of business and technology is ever evolving. Having the best talents would not be enough to meet all the growing business requirements. HR can contribute a lot to upskill the employees through training programmes, interactive sessions, and workshop. This will not only fine-tune the employee to meet the company requirements but also empower them to face challenges in the future. This will act as a driving force for productivity, motivation, performance, and retention.

 Facilitate a work environment with open communication between employees and management

The HR’ can conduct regular meetings with employees and senior management which would be an ideal platform for the employees to share their ideas, challenges and concerns.  The company can be as transparent as possible by opening about the achievements and business goals as this will keep employees mentally and emotionally committed to company goals. HR ‘can opt for an open-door policy that motivates the employees to speak up without any hesitation and which will develop a sense of belonging for the employees. Small companies like Xoxoday follow this very strictly, and we have employees who have been working here since the day of inception as well as people who left the company to join back.

As told by Michael Jordan, “Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships.” It’s one of the key missions of HR to have the best policies in place to retain the talents to build a team which will win the championship in the most competitive world.