With a volatile business environment due to sustained talent shortages and technological advancements, the global workforce continues to evolve, meaning that staff retention is becoming increasingly more crucial to remaining competitive.
From fostering a supportive and flexible work environment, to prioritising employee wellbeing and creating an inclusive and communicative culture, we sat down with our award-winning Director of People, Louise Foster, to discuss how businesses can improve talent retention moving forward.
How can businesses adapt their recruitment strategies to address the growing skills gap and ensure they attract qualified candidates in an increasingly competitive job market?
In terms of recruitment strategies, I believe that adaptability differs between sectors due to different talent pools, personas and resource availability, but something that is interchangeable is a company’s focus on their brand, holistically.
How a brand presents themselves on social media is crucial to any recruitment strategy. I think that employers can really benefit from researching where their potential hires are hanging out and really utilise these platforms to showcase their brands. For instance, at Baltimore Consulting, we utilise Instagram for social hiring when it comes to our employer brand and candidate attraction, showcasing everything we have to offer and ensuring that our brand message is heard. I think candidates aren’t just looking for a desirable job, but a holistic package including a brand that they have a positive perception of as well.
That said, we utilise social media for candidate and client engagement and attraction as well, but have adapted our strategy to include LinkedIn and X as we know that these platforms work better from a B2B perspective.
Brand perception, trust and credibility are all imperative; brand negativity, be it through word of mouth, or on a larger, more visible platform like Google reviews, can be so damaging for both new and existing employees.
I also think it’s important for companies to be open to change. Leadership teams are extremely time poor and whilst recruitment may not be their number one priority, the market is changing rapidly; inflexibility can cause such a huge impact, not only to the ability to recruit top talent, but for your staff retention as well.
What specific strategies can employers implement to combat high staff turnover, particularly in frontline and critical service roles?
Communication and strong leadership in any business is key; one of the main issues we experience is that contractors want to leave if they don’t have enough contact with their line manager.
Employees want to be heard, to have airtime with their managers. Most of these employees are incredibly passionate about what they do and are extremely skilled and talented at what they do, but when their leaders are rigid in their ways, unadaptable or unable to receive feedback or new ideas, it’s impossible to retain talent.
This is especially apparent in critical service roles; these employees have an element of hands-on experience with vulnerable people, it can be a high pressure environment and many of them are still working entirely remotely since the pandemic, so continual touch points, recognition, praise, and overall wellbeing support is crucial.
Equally, employees need to know when they’re doing a good job or not; that’s the airtime opportunity they need to be able to shift focus and learn and grow. We talk about the skills gap, but how would employers know they had one without the communication in the first instance?
How can employers address the growing demand for flexible working arrangements as a key factor in improving employee retention?
I think businesses need to distinguish their “middle ground” in order to compromise, and determine what are the implications to the business?
For example, if someone submits a flexible working request, you need to understand what the risk to that individual is, but also what the risk to the business is – once you accept that request, you set a precedent and you must stay consistent for all staff.
That said, according to a study by Microsoft, UK workers reported being more productive while working from home, and a Digital SEO Agency study found that employees working remotely were 15% more productive than their in-office counterparts.
It may not work for everyone, but having flexibility gives businesses access to a wider talent pool; so I think that it is about understanding differences in circumstance and reacting accordingly.
In what ways can employers enhance career development opportunities and progression pathways to increase long-term retention of staff?
Employers must provide full clarity from the onset; have a career framework for starters, make it accessible for everybody, make it fair and consistent, and review it!
Continually reviewing processes and frameworks are essential when it comes to staff retention. This will allow employers to analyse whether or not the framework they have in place is 1. Still relevant for their business, and 2. Needs adapting to suit the needs of the business and the employees.
Having a job description and a roadmap to achieve is all well and good, but without reviews, how will employers know if the role still exists or if it has evolved into something completely different?
We have a robust framework at Baltimore Consulting, that I break down in terms of not only skillset proficiency, but also consistency. We want to see that employees demonstrate the skills required continually, and I think that that framework piece is really important for them to not only understand the targets in which they need to achieve but also benchmarking themselves against it to recognise what they’re strengths and areas for development are.
Regular touch points, reviews, coaching, training, allows me to work with them, to support them throughout that pathway and help them to flourish in their careers, and ultimately progress in their careers.
I don’t believe this differs from the interim market either; the landscape is changing where interims are seeking more permanent opportunities, allowing them to integrate themselves into a team, have a regular income, stay at home etc. We’re seeing a balancing act between the financial benefits of being an interim, but the holistic benefits of permanent employment – these things are attractive, so enhancing career progression opportunities could very much be a way to retain a skilled interim. It’s again, having those touch points with them to understand job fulfilment and satisfaction, what their aspirations are, if their skillset is better suited elsewhere.
How can businesses use employee feedback and engagement surveys to identify and address retention issues before they lead to significant turnover?
We implement employee feedback and engagement surveys here at Baltimore Consulting on a quarterly basis, and this allows us not only to celebrate the good stuff we’re doing, but to address any development areas as they arise.
I think it’s about getting the balance right again, ensuring you’re asking the right questions, but not too many of them in order to maintain staff engagement, and provide a platform for them to feel safe and heard.
Questions need to be framed around the business or department’s strategic objectives; allowing you to determine where you are from a starting point, and how you need to develop in order to achieve your goals. It shouldn’t be a tick box exercise to showcase all your strengths; you already know them and that isn’t why your talent is leaving you.
I’ve found that the secret is to make it as simple as possible; utilising the survey platform to enhance and improve the user experience, making it easy to access and use. Additionally, we listen. Our surveys are anonymous which gives employees a chance to answer honestly, and they trust us to implement change off the back of them.
Following the survey outcomes, we provide the business with our plan of action moving forward, in terms of how we’ve listened to their opinions, our intentions and how we’ve developed or improved.
Our staff know that it’s worth contributing to incite change; from providing alternative milk options to enhancing our mental health and wellbeing offering, we run our business with our employees at the heart, and our employees know that they can be honest.
Employee engagement surveys also give employers a barometer of satisfaction; if there isn’t the engagement, it will ultimately boil down to fear of ramifications if they provide honest feedback. Good business leaders should want to know their development areas prior to exit interview stage. Ensuring clear lines of communication and providing a space where employees feel heard and safe without judgement is key, as is the provision of multiple opportunities for feedback; regular touch points where employees can have access to management to discuss any issues that may arise or training and development areas.
I think it’s also important in terms of that nurturing piece, is actually making sure that you have conversations with people that aren’t just about work, that you can provide an opportunity or a safety net for people to just talk, creating a culture where you encourage staff to be able to communicate openly. The impact of employees feeling like they don’t have space or safety to talk to their managers is colossal, especially if what’s going on at home might impact while they’re not performing or why they can’t work on site at the moment and why they need to be working from home. You might lose a great person because they didn’t feel like they could talk to you about those things or it wouldn’t be openly received.
