In the race to maintain and or grow their business many business operators find another hurdle that pops up far to easily, and that’s staff turnover. Some call it churn, but whatever you call it it costs the business $$.

Some businesses try to keep their wages above the award rates in the hope it will keep people in the business and not move on. Some use other tactics to retain the employees and even engage them further than the usual 9 - 5 arrangement.

In reality a lot has been written on this subject over many years and the fact that it is still a major issue is testament to the fact that not a lot has been done, or not a lot of understanding about the issue has filtered it’s way through.

Whatever the situation and the outcome, the effective engagement and retention of staff requires innovative approaches to ensure they are mentally stimulated enough to want to hang around and give positive input rather than just being driven by the $$.

Over time people can fade in their energy and interest levels, and this can have wide ranging effects on productivity, leadership, communication and probably a whole raft of other things in the business. So to ensure ongoing engagement, a variety of techniques should be employed, not just one.

Giving cash is one thing, but it’s often a short term fix, giving training is a good option, but should not be the only option as not all people want to be taken away from their work to attend leadership training for example. The astute business needs to find ways to adapt to the person and become more flexible in the delivery of retention devices.

Issues around working hours, family friendly work practices, and now health schemes are becoming more obvious as options for the team. Again innovative approaches need to be used to implement and develop these practices so the staff member can not grow or feel complacent, but rather feel more valued as the various options get rolled out.

Imagine a workplace where a range of options were put to staff, where they could elect some of the options to retain them, then there are more options they do not get to choose but are put in place as well (formal and informal training for example.) The upshot of all this is that an employee feels valued, to the point where they don’t want to go elsewhere, they want to simply contribute at 110%.

In an age where quality workers are lured by better players in the market any employer needs to consider the best ways to get and keep the best players, otherwise their business could find itself on the scrap heap faster than it might care to know about.

Stumble it!