The Ultimate Employee 

Retention Guide   

  

Learn more about employee retention at bonus.ly 

 

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 Introduction 2 

1. What Is Employee Turnover and Employee Retention? 3 

2. Why Does Employee Retention Matter? 9 

3. Causes of Employee Turnover 13 

4. Employee Retention and Turnover Solutions 19 

5. Employee Retention Tools 27 

6. Employee Retention Ideas and Examples 33  

   

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Introduction 

What can I expect from this guide? The Ultimate Employee Retention Guide covers the information you need to know to successfully retain top talent. In turn, you’ll also learn about the factors that attract new employees and how to provide an excellent employee experience.   After all, you shouldn’t be leaving employee retention up to chance! In this guide, you’ll discover how to improve your retention rate and increase employee engagement.  

How should I use this guide? We recommend starting with the fundamentals—it’s hard to fix something when you don’t understand why it matters or what causes it! Otherwise, you’re welcome to jump around to any section of interest to you.   Even if you’re well-versed in this topic, it’s a great time to read about the latest research on employee retention and see if there are any opportunities to upgrade your common practices to best practices.  

Let's get started!   

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1. What Is Employee Turnover and Employee Retention? When we talk about employee turnover, we mean the number of employees who leave an organization over a specified timeframe, typically one year. On the other hand, employee retention is number of employees an organization keeps during a given period.   Many companies track turnover closely because it can be a huge cost to replace employees. Like customer retention, investment in employee retention has a higher return than investment in acquisition.    Retention is also a key sign of employee sentiment and engagement—it can even be a competitive advantage! After all, when a company is hemorrhaging employees, that’s typically a sign of something wrong. Compare this to a company with a team with a proven history of skills, knowledge, and relationships built long term within the company.   Which company would you rather work for or invest in?  That’s what we thought, too. 😉  But before we dive deeper into the who, where, and when of turnover and retention, let’s clear up some definitions.  

 

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Glossary of terms  Retention is the percentage of employees who stay at an organization over a set period. It can also be measured in terms of the average or median tenure; the number of years that employees remain with an employer.  Turnover is the percentage of employees who leave an organization over a set period. It is often reported monthly and annually.   💡You may also hear terms like attrition, churn, or separations for turnover. Attrition can sometimes be used to refer to voluntary turnover, often in the context of a hiring freeze where employees leaving through natural attrition are not replaced in order to reduce the size of the workforce.   Voluntary turnover is when the employee decides to end the employment relationship—it’s the employee’s choice to leave. Generally, the primary focus of retention efforts is to reduce these resignations.   Retirement is technically voluntary turnover, however companies often report retirement rates separately because they are not a focus for reducing turnover.  

 💡 You may also hear terms like quits, exits, departures, or leaves for voluntary turnover.   Involuntary turnover is when the employer decides to end the employment relationship—the employee did not choose to leave. This could be for reasons of poor performance or a layoff due to redundancies.   💡 You may also hear terms like terminations or discharges for involuntary turnover.   

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 More recently, employers are paying more attention to the following quality-of-attrition metrics, which report the attrition rates of “high quality” employees.  

 Healthy turnover is when ending the employment relationship is best for both the employee and employer. It could be when a project ends or there is just a poor fit.   In fact, helping employees understand their own strengths, needs, and preferences—in addition to clear expectations and accountability—can help them voluntarily leave when they’re not able to perform optimally or if they’re unhappy. An employee consistently performing at a low quality or having a toxic attitude impacts the whole team, and letting them go might be best for the long-term health of your company.  💡 You may also hear terms like non-regrettable or functional turnover.  Regrettable turnover is when an employer loses an employee important to its business.   This generally includes employees identified as high performers or high potentials. It also relates to how big an impact they make when they leave, typically because they had a lot of intellectual capital, many direct reports who relied on them, or critical skills that will be difficult to replace.   

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  💡 You may also hear terms like unhealthy or dysfunctional turnover.  Avoidable turnover is when the reasons an employee left were within an employer’s control or influence.   An unavoidable departure may be an employee moving with their spouse, whereas an avoidable departure could be an employee taking a similar job at another company because they offer more flexibility in schedule.    While all types of turnover have some cost to the company, the critical focus for retention strategies is to reduce avoidable and regrettable turnover to as close to zero as possible.   

 

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FAQ 

Who is responsible for turnover? Managers tend to have the biggest impact on retention and face the most immediate consequences when someone leaves their team.    That said, it is often the senior leadership team or HR who is responsible for tracking and reporting turnover. These groups may also work together on wider efforts to reduce turnover.    And overall, every member of an organization can influence and benefit from retaining the people needed to fulfill the organization’s purpose.  

Where do I find my company’s turnover and associated cost?  First, you need company data on headcount and the number of people who left the company in a given time period. The general formula is:  Employee turnover rate as a percentage = (total number of employees who left in time period / average number of employees in time period) * 100.  If you don’t have access or can’t request this information, then you may need to partner with those who can report and influence this area. For example, you may be a manager speaking to an executive about the value of sharing the company’s turnover and developing a strategy around it.   As a manager, it can be valuable enough to pay attention to the turnover in your own team, where you have more information and influence. You will also have more insight into which turnover has been voluntary, regrettable, and avoidable.   If you have access to an HR information system (HRIS) or human capital management (HCM) software, then you may find categories like voluntary and involuntary turnover are already being tracked.  

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  Or, you may spot an opportunity to leverage technology (and Excel spreadsheets count as technology here, too!) to better track the types of turnover for better insights and decisions.  To find out how much turnover costs your organization each year, try our Cost of Employee Turnover Calculator. 

When should we pay attention to retention? Retention may not always be the organization’s priority if your best people never leave for unavoidable reasons. Even if this is the case for you, though, retention is a competitive advantage that you will want to monitor and nurture.   From the very first employee-employer interaction, likely the job application, you have an opportunity to build a culture of commitment. Every aspect of the candidate and employee experience can help you keep the people who make your organization successful.   

Why should I care about retention?

You’re in luck—our next chapter exclusively covers this question. Read on to find out!  Plus, if you’re looking for a quick way to start improving employee engagement, we invite you to take a tour of the platform and join us for a demo.      

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2. Why Does Employee Retention Matter?  Whatever type of turnover—voluntary or involuntary, regrettable or not—there is a cost.   Any time an employee leaves a vacant role, there is the time, money, and effort associated with recruiting, hiring, and training a replacement. There may also be separation costs like severance pay.  

  According to Gallup, replacing an employee generally costs between one-half to two times their annual salary. Based on Gallup’s finding that 52% of voluntary turnover is avoidable and the average voluntary turnover in the U.S., there is a potential savings of over half a trillion dollars every year. 😳💸  In addition, there is the cost of lost productivity while the position is vacant. It can take a year or two for a new hire to equal the productivity of the employee who left.  Furthermore, it can impact the morale and productivity of the team that’s left, which can lead to lost revenue, less efficiency, and further turnover.  

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 Another cost are the knowledge, skills, and relationships that you lose with a departing employee. Consider even the amount you directly invested in building that employee’s abilities that you may now have to start fresh with a new employee.   You also lose the potential value the employee could have brought to the company, particularly as it relates to succession planning. The higher this loss, the more likely this turnover falls into the regrettable category.   And finally, turnover can have a broader impact on the brand. Current and former employees can be valuable ambassadors for a company, or they can share their negative experiences with their personal, professional, and online network, putting both the employer brand and consumer brand at risk.    Want to see actual numbers? To put this in financial terms, try our free Cost of Employee Turnover Calculator for an estimate.  

Retention and engagement  The importance of retention is not just to minimize cost—is also offers opportunity to increase sales and employee morale.   Retention on its own is important for the bottom line, on top of which it plays an important role in another key business driver: employee engagement.   Just take a look at the following common definitions of employee engagement:  

● Gallup: “those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace.” 

● Aon: “the level of an employee’s psychological investment in their organization.” 

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 ● IBM Kenexa: “the extent to which employees are motivated to 

contribute to organizational success, and are willing to apply discretionary effort to accomplishing tasks important to the achievement of organizational goals.” 

● Harvard Business Review: “Employee engagement is when employees want to come to work, are capable of doing their jobs, and understand how their work contributes to the success of the organization.” 

 The most basic requirement for an employee to be invested in an organization’s success is to contribute to the organization long-term. From there, engagement can grow as we build greater involvement, enthusiasm, and effort.   And many research studies have established the importance of employee engagement: 

● Gallup showed that companies with highly engaged employees outperform their peers in terms of customer loyalty (10% increase), productivity (20%), and profitability (21%)  

● Best Buy found that a 0.1% increase in employee engagement at a particular store was worth $100,000 to the company  

● Our Employee Engagement Handbook shares how disengagement costs the U.S. $500 billion in lost productivity every year, along with a practical guide to improve engagement 

 Korn Ferry predicts a global talent shortage over 85.2 million people by 2030. In the U.S. alone, that’s $1.75 trillion in unrealized annual revenue. Retention and engagement work hand-in-hand to keep the talent you need for business success.   When unemployment rates are lower, employees have more options and so turnover tends to raise while overall retention becomes more critical. Regardless of the external environment, regrettable turnover is always a concern because top talent always has options.  

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  And even when unemployment rates are high and competition for labor is low, it’s plain prudent to prepare for a turn in the market. It will pay off in the long-run when you retain the people you invested in developing and those you rely on for key skills, knowledge, and relationships.   Every industry and job has its unique challenges. Read onward to Chapter 3 to find a detailed analysis of the causes of employee turnover.   We also invite you to learn more about Bonusly’s employee recognition and rewards platform and join us for a demo to learn more about how you can start building a recognition-rich organizational culture.  

   

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3. Causes of Employee Turnover  Turnover is influenced by many factors that generally come from two directions: external forces and internal forces. We have a bigger impact focusing on internal forces within the company’s control.   We’ll start with external forces, though, because it helps to be aware of how much they contribute to fluctuations so that you can make effective decisions about retention. It also helps assess how important turnover is to your company when you see how you stack up against your competitors.   

  

Average turnover rate The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey is based on a monthly survey of approximately 16,000 U.S. businesses. They report the average total turnover rate around 3.5% with voluntary turnover around 2% monthly.  

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 As unemployment rates have declined for the past decade, the U.S. has gone from over six unemployed people per job opening in 2009 to less than one in 2019. That means employees have more options.  When there is more confidence in the economy and lower unemployment, voluntary turnover tends to rise and involuntary turnover tends to fall.   Mercer’s annual survey of 150 organizations in the US reported voluntary turnover at 16% in 2018 - lower than the 26.9% that the federal government reported, which may be a reflection on the types of organizations that participate in Mercer’s more in-depth study.   Overall, turnover does not vary greatly based on organizational size, although larger organizations can have slightly lower rates. And smaller organizations tend to feel more of an impact when someone quits.   Geographically speaking, the South tends to have the highest quit rates while the Northeast has the lowest in the US.   The biggest variances by far, though, are seen between industries. Hospitality and retail have the highest turnover rates while manufacturing and finance have among the lowest in the private sector.     

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Industry 5-Year Average 

Voluntary Turnover 

Hospitality  51% 

Retail  35% 

Professional Services  34% 

Leisure  34% 

Construction  24% 

Transportation  21% 

Real Estate  21% 

Health care  21% 

Information  18% 

Manufacturing  15% 

Education  15% 

Finance  14% 

Government  9%  Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014-2018 

 When LinkedIn analyzed their half-a-billion users, they found 11% indicated they left a company in 2017. This turnover rate is likely lower than the government and Mercer reports because of the types of professionals that use the platform and the dependence on an individual updating their profile.  Still, LinkedIn showed how turnover reflects current industry trends. Retail is a high turnover industry and now software is too. However, tech employees usually move to another tech company while retail employees often move to a new industry, likely due to the rise of online shopping.  

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 When LinkedIn ranked job functions, those with the highest turnover (17%) were marketing and research, followed by media and communication, HR, and support functions (15%). Sales, engineering, and operations also have above average turnover (13%), likely a reflection of high demand for their skills. Meanwhile business development has the highest retention (6%).  While turnover trends are valuable, insights into your industry and overall economy are likely enough to anticipate when you need to invest more in recruitment and retention. Besides, long-term investment in retention is the most effective approach regardless of fluctuations in the market.  And while it can be helpful to benchmark externally based on industry, function, and region, the most important benchmark is internally based on department, job level, location, and other segments of your organization over time. So let’s now look inward. 

Key drivers Certain aspects of employee experience tend to be the biggest drivers of turnover (why employees leave) and retention (why employees stay).  Work Institute reports that 77% of voluntary turnover is avoidable. They found the top reason for leaving is career development, followed by work-life balance and manager behavior. Compensation, job, and workplace were also common reasons.  Based on industry research, the key drivers are consistent: 

● Total rewards ● Onboarding ● Leadership ● Learning and development ● Growth and advancement ● Wellness and work-life balance 

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Total rewards Total rewards goes beyond base pay, bonuses, and compensation overall. It includes health benefits like insurance and financial benefits like retirement savings. For many companies, it also includes any gifts or bonuses received due to a recognition program.  In sum, total rewards encompasses all that an employer offers an employee in exchange for joining, contributing, and staying with the company. 

Recognition 

When we talk about total rewards, we should also keep in mind the power of recognition. At its core, employee recognition is the open acknowledgment and expressed appreciation for employees’ contributions to their organization.  When organizations decentralize employee recognition and empower their workers to engage in peer-to-peer and 360-degree recognition (that is, not solely top-down recognition), they increase the frequency with which employees can receive recognition and get a more nuanced understanding of what individuals, teams, and departments consider valuable.  

Onboarding Employees tend to be the most positive about their employer before their first day on the job. Onboarding is a way to build on that momentum, but it’s often a place where companies fall short.  A BambooHR survey found that 31% of employees have quit a job within the first six months and the top reason was a poor onboarding experience, which is generally defined as the first 90 days on the job.  Onboarding includes orientation to the workplace and the job, yet it’s so much more than that. This is the time to integrate the new employee into the team and culture: the core values underlying everyday behavior. 

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Leadership We know from our own experiences—and research backs it up—how critical managers are to the employee experience. The immediate supervisor directly influences many key drivers of engagement and retention like development and recognition. If your manager doesn’t recognize your work, how can you trust them to support your career growth and success? 🤔 Senior leadership also plays an important role. Executives must clearly articulate the company’s vision and values. They’re responsible for the transparency that makes people feel secure and that the work they do is meaningful.  

Learning and development When people think about job learning, they think training, and that’s certainly a key part, whether in-class workshops or bite-sized videos on-demand. However, the majority of career development comes from on-the-job learning. It’s an organic way we share knowledge. Plus it’s often the most effective way to learn: in a real environment with a real task. Employees want to strengthen their skill sets to do better in their job, career, and sometimes just for the challenge and stimulation that keeps coming to work every day interesting.  

Growth and advancement While learning and growth are highly related, we separated them because they can satisfy different needs and can be accomplished in different ways. Nobody wants to feel stuck. No matter how much education you provide, many people are not satisfied unless they can move to progressively more challenging jobs. And simply changing someone’s title from junior to senior hardly makes them feel more confident and capable. 

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Wellness and work-life balance We define wellness as a holistic way to look at employee health, that includes both physical and mental health.  Work-life balance is a way to support employee wellness, and an increasingly more common method is flexible work arrangements. Research from Owl Labs and TINYpulse showed companies that support remote work have 25% less turnover.  

  Now that you know the factors that cause turnover, what can you do to fix it? Keep reading to find out.  Want a head start? Check out Bonusly’s employee recognition and rewards platform for a turnkey employee engagement booster by requesting a demo.      

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4. Employee Retention and Turnover Solutions  To solve employee turnover, we look at employee retention best practices and organization-specific strategies.  Current best practice is to improve the employee experience in order to increase employee engagement and retention—and all the other great things that come with them, like improved business performance.  The CMO of People maps the employee experience from the employee’s perspective instead of HR’s perspective. This small shift can help focus efforts on a great experience instead of an efficient process.   Even before someone is hired, they can begin to experience the passion of the leadership, the camaraderie of the workplace, and the inspiration of the organization’s purpose.   An employee value proposition (EVP) articulates what a person gains by working for you. Defining and communicating your EVP improves both recruitment and retention.   Gartner reports that organizations that effectively deliver on their EVP can decrease turnover by nearly 70%. They identify five key categories of a strong EVP:   

● Rewards includes compensation, health benefits, and recognition awards 

● Work includes person-job fit and work-life balance  ● Opportunity includes career and development opportunities  ● People includes coworkers, managers, and senior leaders  ● Organization includes product quality and social responsibility  

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  Starting day one, you will want your employees to experience the EVP throughout their time with your company. These are all opportunities to engage and retain your talent - or not.    That said, when it comes to turnover in your unique organization, a general best practice may not be the answer. The solution depends on the problem.   Your retention efforts will be more effective (and cost-effective) if they are tailored to the critical people at risk of leaving. Based on who these critical people are and the reasons they are at risk of leaving, consider the following strategies to reduce employee turnover.  

Total rewards 

 Compensation has less to do with retention than most people believe. However, it is a major factor in deciding between job offers.   If an employee is recruited by another company that offers higher pay, that could be a key reason they leave. The same goes for benefits and perks—vacation time may not be why employees stay, but it could be why some leave.   

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  Therefore, regularly benchmark your total rewards against your competition for talent. Also, listen to employee feedback on what they value. That said, avoid competing on pay and giving employees every perk they ask for. It’s unsustainable, with diminishing returns.  What you can do is make sure that your employees are recognized for the hard work they do. Everybody prefers to be appreciated in a specific way, which is why we recommend checking out our study with SurveyMonkey about the five languages of appreciation. Rewards isn’t just about monetary amounts—it’s also about building trust, making others feel seen, and providing a positive employee experience.  

Onboarding Many people quit because the job wasn’t what they expected. Before hiring someone, ensure you are providing them realistic previews of the job and work environment.   Then, use your first impression wisely. Essentially, you want to affirm their decision to join the company. Make their first day special, make them feel welcome!  Next, set them up for success. People quit when they feel neglected, overwhelmed, under-qualified, or under-trained.   Be extra clear with new hires about the role and expectations. Ensure they have enough access to their supervisor when they have questions. No matter how brilliant they are, everyone has a learning curve in the beginning.    Finally, socialization into the culture is the biggest missed opportunity in onboarding. Incorporate culture into your onboarding program. Integrate formal and informal opportunities to build connections with co-workers. A buddy or mentor program is a common approach that gives the employee 

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 someone to go to with the less technical, more “how do you use the espresso machine?” kind of guidance.   For more tips on effective onboarding, check out our webinar: Employee Appreciation Starts with Onboarding. 

Leadership There’s no denying how important managers are. Supervisors play a key role in most retention drivers. That’s why enabling leaders to be their best is so important.  New managers need training, coaching, and support. They need the information and tools to lead their teams. For more details, read our summary of a strong leadership toolkit.   Apart from the role they play in retaining employees, it is critical to retain leaders! Don’t assume that just because they’re higher up in the career ladder, that they need less appreciation for their hard work. A good place to start is by recognizing your leaders.   Plus, don’t forget about your most senior leaders. PwC’s Strategy& reported turnover among CEOs at the world’s largest companies at 17.5% in 2018, a record high in 19 years. These senior leaders can leave huge information gaps in their wake if they leave, so don’t just assume they’re here to stay.   Most of the time a CEO leaves, it’s a planned succession. However, successor CEOs tend to deliver lower performance and shorter tenures. Which makes it all the more important to retain, engage, and prepare the people in your succession pipeline. 

Learning and development We love the quote from Peter Baeklund: “A CFO asks a CEO: What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us? 

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 The CEO responds: What happens if we don’t and they stay?”  Development shouldn’t stop after an employee is trained to meet the expectations of the role. When you provide your people with the time, encouragement, and access to learning, then you are helping them to feel valued and that the company cares about their personal success. Bonus points if these employees are continually recognized for their ambition.   Based on the budget and function, this could be in the form of an online learning platform, conferences, job shadowing, mentorship, and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing.   Development should also be the focus of your performance management program. (By the way, we have a complete guide on that, too.) 

Recognition  To provide the feedback that employees want, combine performance development with recognition. Josh Bersin reports that the top 20% of “recognition-rich” companies have 31% lower voluntary turnover rates.   When employees feel under appreciated, Robert Half found two thirds of employees would leave their jobs. Gallup found they were twice as likely to quit within a year.  Moral of the story: when you recognize and appreciate your employees, they’re more likely to stick around—and be more engaged, productive team members as well. Find information and benefits about effective recognition in The Guide to Modern Employee Recognition.  

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Growth and advancement 

 Growth encompasses the opportunity to contribute more, whether it’s a promotion or greater participation in decision making. Without changing jobs, employees can find growth through greater meaning in the work and greater contribution to the organizational purpose.    In a survey of over 2,000 professionals, over 90% would trade pay for meaning. On average, they would be willing to earn 23% less in their lifetime. They would even learn less just for a manager who cared about them having meaningful work.   When employees have meaning, they are more productive and take less time off. The study estimates this generates an additional $9,078 per worker for the company, every year. Furthermore, turnover risk reduces by 24% when shared purpose is combined with social support.  Any job has room for creativity and meaning. Focusing on the people that the employee helps. Create a shared purpose with the team. Consider job crafting, which allows employees to redesign or reframe their job.  In addition, look for ways to facilitate internal mobility. This could be as simple as ensuring employees are aware of job openings. This can be 

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 supported by encouraging one-on-one discussions with managers about developing skills for future jobs.  

Wellness and work-life balance 

 Investing in wellness shows that the company cares about its people, which increases their satisfaction with the workplace. It also happens to improve the bottom line.   This is another area that depends on the needs of your unique employee population, paying close attention to those at most risk of attrition. Examples can be subsidized transit passes, free healthy snacks, or a wellness spending account.  The most important place to instill wellness is in the culture. On-site yoga classes won’t feel very genuine if employees fear they’ll look bad for leaving their desk to participate. Look in your day-to-day interactions and workflows for ways to support well-being.   Work-life balance is a priority and a challenge for pretty much everyone who works. Many are moving to more of a work-life integration or blend.   

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 This had led to high demand for flexible work arrangements, which can save costs and increase productivity but can also introduce new challenges.   Figure out what makes sense for your organization and how to support it from the culture up. How about checking out Bonusly’s employee recognition and rewards platform? Join us for a demo to learn more about how you can start building a highly engaged organizational culture. Otherwise, Chapter 5 gives you a rundown of the best HR tech tools on the market.      

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5. Employee Retention Tools  Overall, increasing retention depends on building a culture of commitment. A big part of that is addressing the underlying problems causing regrettable turnover. An effective retention plan generally involves a number of programs, tools, and initiatives across many areas.  

HRIS A reliable HR information system (HRIS) is table stakes once you reach about 25 employees. The effects of an organized HRIS are felt from day one, contributing to a positive experience at onboarding, pay periods, and vacation time.   Most HR software—i.e., HRIS, HR management systems (HRMS), or human capital management (HCM) systems—offer modules or integrations for every step the employee lifecycle.   The majority of employee complaints about HR tend to be about mistakes in HR processes and lack of responsiveness, so we recommend tools that automate straightforward stuff, deliver great user experience, and facilitate human interactions:   

● BambooHR is designed to make HR software—including recruitment, onboarding, and performance management - easy for small and medium businesses 

● Namely streamlines HR with payroll, benefits, and talent management in a centralized platform for mid-market companies 

● Sapling delivers HRIS and onboarding with custom workflows and reporting for fast-growing, mid-sized companies  

● UltiPro offers HCM, payroll, talent management, employee surveys, and more options, including analytics  

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 ● HiBob is a quickly growing HCM platform because of its management 

perspective for core HR, talent management, and culture 

Employee experience An employee experience platform puts user experience first, making it easy and enjoyable for employees to interact with the systems that help them, when employees need them.   Global industry analyst Josh Bersin believes that it is the future of HR tech. When employees can interact with all applications through one employee experience platform, they don’t have to log in or learn all those different applications.   

● ServiceNow is a leader in this area with a platform of intelligent digital workflows 

● Watson is IBM’s artificial intelligence that powers chatting with their various solutions   

Communication  The people that you want to retain will also likely be the people who care most about being able to do their job well. If they are not able to easily share information and communicate with their teams, then they may look for a work environment where they can better realize their potential.   Communication tools also play a major role in shaping the culture and employee experience, especially in growing and more dispersed companies. From a business standpoint, we recommend looking for technology that also supports productivity and innovation:    

● Slack is a popular platform intended to be a single place for messaging, tools, and files 

● Google Hangouts Chat offers secure direct messaging and group conversations 

● Igloo is a digital workspace that replaces traditional Intranet software  

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  By the way, these communication tools, and others, integrate with Bonusly!  In addition, project management tools can be used for communication and collaboration. Some excellent free options include Asana and Trello.   There are a lot of cool things happening in the HR space. Consider the collaboration stacks that would best optimize different communication loops in your organization. If you’ve never heard of communication loops or collaboration stacks, don’t worry: we explain it all here.  

Surveys Traditionally, employee satisfaction or engagement surveys may have been administered annually, however many organizations are moving to a more continuous feedback model. Here are some tools to consider once you determine your approach:  

● SurveyMonkey is a popular survey tool with a lot of functionality packed into their free plan—they’re also a Bonusly customer! 

● Typeform is a survey platform that also integrates with integrates with over 500 apps 

● Officevibe is a user-friendly employee engagement solution with a focus on insights direct to managers  

● WorkTango is an employee insights engine that makes collecting feedback fast, easy, and anonymous 

● Culture Amp makes it easy to collect and understand employee engagement data, including turnover forecasts powered by machine learning  

   

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Recognition   When choosing a tool for employee recognition, look for a platform that:  

● Embeds in workflows ● Provides rewards ● Shares people analytics ● Scales easily 

 Bonusly has all of these, and more. 👋  Bonusly also has a digital signage feature that can help integrate recognition in the day-to-day to improve engagement and retention. If you have a screen set up in a main area like a lunch room or reception, it brings employee pride and belonging off the computer and into the office.    In addition to driving retention, Bonusly can help decide how else to address risks of turnover. Our Organization Graph feature shows team connections, which can inform how to engage team members who might need more attention.   Interested? Go ahead and explore the Bonusly platform yourself or join us for a demo. 

Development  We know that growth and development are major drivers of retention. It’s no coincidence that there is a lot of change in technology for those areas. As we adapt to the way that employees need and want to learn, we are seeing more self-directed, on-demand, and bite-sized options.      

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 If you are considering or already have a core HR system, it may offer a learning management system (LMS). These do: 

● Workday ● Cornerstone OnDemand  ● SAP SuccessFactors 

 You could add to the LMS—or offer on its own—online learning like the following massive open online course (MOOC) platforms: 

● LinkedIn Learning  ● edX ● Udacity ● Coursera 

 And while employees may not ask specifically for performance management, some want more feedback - and most want support from their manager. That can be where performance tools come in. If you have a core HR system, it may have a performance module. Another example is Small Improvements. Their focus on continuous feedback—through objectives, 1:1s, reviews—is designed for small to medium companies.  

Well-being  A wellness program can encompass efforts to build awareness, education, and access to tools that help employees manage their own well-being.   If you already have an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), then you may start by communicating and encouraging employees to take advantage of the EAP coaching and healthcare professionals.   You may also consider mindfulness tools like the meditation app, Headspace, to support stress management and focus. Their research found that just four sessions reduced burnout by 14%. Headspace also happens to be a Bonusly customer!  

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 FitBit also has a program for employers, offering subsidized ownership of a FitBit device and internal company competitions and rewards. 

Recruitment Retention works hand-in-hand with recruitment. Candidate experience leads into employee experience, and if it’s not done well, you’re right back out there recruiting for the same role again.   A solid Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can help you stay on top of the recruitment process and candidate interactions: 

● Indeed is a popular job search site that offers a free dashboard for employers to manage the recruitment process—plus, it offers free skills assessments! 

● Jobvite is a leading recruitment software designed for the full candidate experience, from passive candidates to onboarding 

 Another valuable step in the recruitment stage is assessments. By assessing candidate abilities and fit, you can help select employees who will thrive in your work environment.   

● IBM offers a huge library of assessments, from cognitive ability to specialized skills for specific jobs or industries 

● Predictive Index provides behavioral and cognitive assessments for hiring and developing employees and teams 

Analytics  We wrote a step-by-step process for applying analytics to retention. Some tools to consider: 

● Microsoft Excel is likely already in your toolbox and may be all you need at this point, with capabilities like conditional formatting or a correlation matrix of variables to highlight trends 

● Visier is a leader in people analytics and workforce planning that brings together data from different sources to provide insights in an intuitive Q&A format, complete with interactive visualizations  

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  “Instead of reporting single metrics, find out how resignations are affected by things such as compensation ratio, promotion wait time, pay increases, tenure, performance, and training opportunities. This insight supports better decisions around changes to pay, benefits, and learning and development in order to manage costs, while retaining the right people.”  -Ian Cook, VP People Solutions, Visier   Looking for more concrete ideas of what a retention initiative actually looks like? Look no further than our last chapter!     

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6. Employee Retention Ideas and Examples  For our last chapter in this guide, we’ll look at three levels of staff retention ideas:  

● Common practices: what are considered standard expectations ● Best practices: what leading employers are doing ● Evidence-based practices: what we know is effective from research  

 We’ll also filter each section through the practice of listening or acting.   

Listening It’s a leap in the dark to make changes without knowing where changes are needed. Gathering feedback and opinions from your team members is important—it’s the only way to understand your company’s unique pain points, and typically will uncover a way to address them as well.   

Acting When you talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. There are few experiences more disheartening for an employee than being asked for input, but then not hearing or seeing anything come from it.  

Common practices These are activities that most employers do and most employees expect. They are not requirements, but they are a good place to start if they’re not in practice yet at your organization. 

Listening We see practices of listening and acting as equally important. It’s a leap in the dark to make changes without knowing where changes are needed.  

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Engagement surveys 

Just the act of asking for feedback provides a greater sense of employee voice. And just the gesture of showing that employees were heard, regardless if you can act on their feedback, is huge for engagement and retention.   The biggest value, though, is in the insights that your people share. Giving them an anonymous channel can bring out perspectives that they may not share with their manager or that may never get to the people who can respond to it.    That’s where the biggest opportunity is: responding. When you cannot give them what they ask for, explain why, and express how important their continued feedback is for the company’s continued improvement.   It is simple to get started with free or low cost tools like SurveyMonkey, Typeform, or Google Forms and a foundational set of questions.   

Exit interviews  

Work Institute examined over 234,000 exit interviews to uncover root causes of turnover, which align with what we’ve outlined in this guide. They also provide advice on conducting exit interviews: 

● Every organization is unique in the reasons employees leave, so avoid reliance on external benchmarks 

● Up to 63% of internal exit interview answers change when a third party asks about reasons for leaving, so ensure real and perceived confidentiality  

● Use interviews in combination with a survey of simple quantitative and qualitative questions to increase the scope of what can be learned 

 As Yelp grew from 1,000 to 5,000 employees, they asked for employee feedback through Culture Amp engagement surveys and exit surveys. When they saw a decrease in new hire sales retention, they used the data to understand why employees were leaving and predict separations with 

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 greater confidence. As a result, they made changes in recruitment and onboarding in Q4 2016 and Q1 2017, Yelp retention returned to regular levels.  

Acting 

Total rewards 

Do you offer flexibility in start times? Have a significant portion of employees been promoted internally? Do you give employees autonomy to complete a task in the way they prefer? Are you proud of your product? These can all be a part of your total rewards offer.    “Bonusly… is beloved by the team. It's frequently mentioned by employees as their favorite benefit, and we offer free healthcare!”  -Mike Bearden, VP of People Operations, HouseCanary   To define your offer, start with an inventory of everything that current employees value about working at your company. This could involve surveys, focus groups, and interviews.    You could find that informal or grassroots activities are what employees enjoy most, for example: lunches that the team takes together or the fun decorations on desks. It is scheduling, location, and culture that make those lunches happen. It is the desk space, office policy, and culture that allows employees to decorate their desks the way that makes them happy.   In these examples, you could include office location and layout, in addition to freedom in policies and schedules, as part of an employee’s total rewards.  When you make an offer to a candidate, you could summarize all the elements of your total rewards package. Consider putting a dollar value to 

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 show how much you invest in them, on top of their salary. Then, you could do the same every year to support retention.  

One-on-one meetings 

The manager-employee meeting may seem low-tech and old news, but don’t let the simplicity fool you: this is one of the most powerful practices to retain, engage, and enable your employees.   Whether daily, weekly, or monthly, checking in privately allows employees to share what’s going well and where they could use more support. When performance discussions are happening more than once a year, then they are less scary and more helpful. Check out our tips for doing it right.   Different schedules and locations can present challenges in meeting regularly, but Zapier makes it a priority for an entirely remote team across 13 countries. They do one-on-one’s (1:1s) and reviews through video chat and document everything inside Small Improvements. 

Best practices If you’re looking to go above and beyond, these are the practices your company should be enacting for a superior employee experience.  

Listening 

Stay interviews 

Some organizations do "stay interviews" in addition to exit interviews. Before an employee has already decided to leave, these proactive interviews ask what is keeping them at the organization and what could make them leave.    "Typically it's not until the exit interview that you're given perspective on what went wrong, and by then it's too late to change the person's mind."   -Mandy Gilbert, Founder and CEO, Creative Niche  

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  This is a practice that you could implement at points in the employee lifecycle when employees tend to leave. For example, it could be a part of the onboarding process and one-year review. In fact, it could be embedded in regular manager-employee discussions, asking both what the employee needs to do their job well and to develop within the organization.   

Company review sites 

The reality is that employees are not always going to be comfortable raising issues to their manager or through internal surveys, especially if trust is part of the issue at hand.   Even when employees are leaving, they want to maintain good relationships and not speak too negatively in exit interviews. That’s why company review sites can be valuable additional sources of information for the company.   When Ceridian looked at their Glassdoor scores in 2013, they were low: under two on a 5-point scale. They listened to employees, made engagement a priority, and changed their culture. Within 18 months, they moved their Glassdoor score above 4. From 2016 onward, they have ranked as one of the best places to work.    “Employee attrition went down, customer retention went up and our business began to thrive. The inflection point was changing the model of how we engage employees. Employee experience is our number one goal. The second is customer experience, and third is product excellence.”  -David Ossip, CEO, Ceridian   

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Acting 

Career development 

Google’s learning culture is well-known. They make learning a part of every day, on the job, with flexibility to innovate. They also make teaching a part of the culture: 80% of Google’s tracked training is through a network of employees volunteering to mentor, teach courses, or design learning materials. Read more in their guide to creating an employee-to-employee learning program.   Technology can greatly elevate a career management program. IBM Watson Career Coach can give you an idea of what’s available now in AI-powered career pathing. Employees can chat with Watson to see internal job opportunities based on their skills, interests, and common career paths in your organization.  

Recognition 

A simple thank you can go a long way, however a full recognition program will have a much bigger impact on engagement and retention. Our recognition guide outlines what an effective recognition program looks like.   The guide also provides concrete examples of recognition in action. Here’s an excerpt:   “At Button, we have each new employee fill out an orientation survey on their first day. One of the questions we ask is, tell us about a time you felt appreciated for your work. This provides the management team with insight into how to make sure all Buttonians are able to be recognized in ways that they feel appreciated.”  -Stephen Milbank, Co-Founder, Button  

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Evidence-based practices These are not necessarily more sophisticated or more expensive approaches—they just may be less common, yet evidence in research and in practice shows us they are effective.  

Listening 

Focus groups 

Together with surveys, focus groups help you ask the right questions to understand issues and their underlying causes at a deeper level. With the human touch and ability to probe, focus groups help show that you care about what they have to say and that you are invested in providing them a positive work environment.  The effectiveness of this approach depends on the quality of the facilitator and making it easy for employees to participate. Consider regular scheduling when a cross-section of employees can be available and paid for their time a convenient location.  

Analytics 

You don’t necessarily need fancy analytics software to use data for retention. Read about how you can apply an analytical approach to retention here.   SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, identifies work behaviors that signal risk of attrition, such as lateness, absenteeism, and performance. They also recommend monitoring withdrawal processes, which could be monitored through employee surveys questions on intention to leave.   Tracking these metrics can identify when and where greater retention efforts are needed. This could mean monthly or quarterly reports on trends combined with other listening methods to understand what is changing and why.   

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Acting 

Forward-focused discussions 

 “When there is an issue, put the problem in the middle of the table to tackle together. Autopsies on what went wrong and who is to blame can trigger defensiveness. Honest and forward-looking conversations, on the other hand, promote solutions, improvement, and resilience.”  -Pauline James, Principal, Anchor HR Services   inField Clipboard treats obstacles as shared problems for a team with all the necessary skills to come together to solve. Inviting employees to help identify opportunities and resolve issues is not only good for business, it’s good for engagement and retention.  

Cross-functional problem solving 

Joint problem solving leverages different strengths and promotes inclusion, collaboration, and creativity. It is a powerful approach to conflict and silos that is simply gathering people from different functions or backgrounds to solve a problem. More specifically, it is about building opportunities, formal and informal, to solve operational challenges together.  

Now what? First, you have to hear what’s being said. Pick a listening method to find sight into where you can make changes to improve retention. Afterwards, come back here to see which actionable solutions fit your company’s needs. Things won’t change overnight, but you’re making positive progress toward a healthy company culture. 🙌💚  If you need more help, come chat with us! We invite you to tour the platform and join us for a demo to learn more about how you can start building a recognition-rich organizational culture.   

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Bonusly is a fun, personal recognition and rewards program that enriches your company culture and improves employee 

engagement. 

With Bonusly, everyone in your organization can publicly recognize everyone else by giving small bonuses that add up 

to meaningful rewards. 

 Learn more about employee recognition at bonus.ly 

  

 

 

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