4 Effective Strategies to Increase Employee Retention (and 5 Common Reasons Employees Leave)

Retaining employees has remained one of the most persistent and painful thorns in the side of sales organizations for decades. 

Average sales rep tenure barely surpasses 18 months. And the time and cost of finding suitable replacements is rising rapidly. For example, the average cost to replace a mid-level sales rep now falls between a staggering 150-200% of the position’s annual salary. So organizations are increasingly focusing on improving employee retention.

But, how can organizations improve employee retention rates by reversing the long-standing sales industry tradition of short tenures and never-ending turnover? 

This article will cover five strategies that help organizations boost retention and decrease turnover. 

Five Common Reasons Why Employees Leave

1. Unimpressive Salaries and Lackluster Benefits 

Competition for talented professionals has rarely been as fierce as it is now. High-performing, skilled individuals are aware of this market trend and may leave their current position if they feel their organization fails to compensate them for their value.

Talented employees can often enjoy a 10 to 20 percent salary increase by simply moving from one company to the next, making job-hopping attractive. So organizations must be diligent about adjusting compensation to remain competitive and encourage high-performers to stay onboard. 

2. Overwhelming Workloads

Efforts to raise awareness of the workplace’s mental health impact have increased how employees value a positive and harmonious working environment. 

Crushing workloads and unrealistic sales targets create stressful and even hostile company cultures, leading talented employees to jump ship in search of calmer waters.

3. Career Advancement Dead-Ends 

Without opportunities to take on new responsibilities and challenges, many employees can begin to feel stagnant in their current positions. At a time when nearly four in ten professionals feel their career has stalled since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, advancement opportunities are more important than ever. 

It isn’t possible to promote everyone to management. But organizations that cultivate a reputation for promoting internally by identifying and supporting top-performers. This practice can encourage their entire workforce to take their performance up a notch and improve employee retention rate.

4. Poor Work-Life Balance 

Work-life balance has transitioned from a stand-out perk to a baseline expectation amongst highly skilled professionals. 

60% of American workers who reported a poor work-life balance linked their woes to a lack of boundaries between their jobs and personal lives. And a surprising 72% of workers said that work-life balance is a “very important” consideration when looking for a new position. 

Due to this trend, organizations with a culture that values strong work-life balances and happy employees will enjoy access to a much wider talent pool compared to their competition. Balance-conscious companies will likely also enjoy longer tenures from talented employees. 

5. Poor Management 

As the old saying goes, employees quit managers, not companies. Therefore, ensure your team leadership is well-versed in technical aspects of their position and interpersonal management skills. Competent management can go a long way towards improving employee turnover.

Organizations that want to maximize the impact of their managerial staff must invest in ongoing training that keeps them up to date on management best practices. Ongoing training empowers managers to cultivate positive and supportive environments, leading to improved team morale and cohesion.

Four Effective Strategies to Increase Employee Retention and Job Satisfaction

1. Hire the Right People.

If your organization’s employee retention rate resembles a ‘revolving door,’ it’s time to reevaluate how you recruit, hire, and onboard new team members.

Identifying cultural fits that display traits and qualities that indicate serious professional commitment and loyalty can be extremely difficult for hiring managers. So many organizations utilize technology to take their hiring efforts to the next level. 

Predictive analytics offers a data-driven answer to optimizing the recruitment and hiring process that empowers organizations to improve employee retention, performance, productivity, and team morale.

2. Provide Ongoing Education and Clear Advancement Paths

Promoting from within signals that your organization recognizes and values the hard work employees contribute to your company’s mission and successes. When companies neglect internal talent to fill senior positions, staff can quickly become unmotivated and uninspired in their roles. 

Regular and ongoing opportunities for professional skill development can also make your employees feel more valued. In addition, it signals your organization is more than willing to invest in employees’ success.

3. Be Competitive with Compensation Packages and Benefits

Salary information is easily available online, and organizations around the globe are stepping up compensation packages to attract high-performing professionals. So failing to incentivize your employees will likely send them packing. They may even gravitate towards a market competitor with modern and attractive compensation packages.

Being genuinely competitive is the key to enhancing employee retention through your compensation package. ‘Competitive compensation’ has become a code word for ‘industry standard’ at many organizations, leading applicants to disregard the statement altogether in job postings in favor of hard numbers. Consider paying above your industry average to attract and retain the best talent.

After all, you’re trying to attract and retain above-average employees, right?

4. Capitalize on Exit Survey Insights

Inevitably, every organization will experience some degree of employee turnover. Keeping employees happy is multi-faceted and complex. An employee retention strategy that works for most of your workforce may not be ideal for every new hire that comes through the door. 

Through exit interviews, companies can turn less frequent instances of turnover into valuable feedback that helps improve future employee retention. 

To get the most out of exit interviews, keep in mind that exit interviews should not be taken personally by company leadership. Instead, see an opportunity to learn, improve, and grow. 

Even more critical is a commitment to acting on the feedback and insights gained from the exit survey to improve working conditions across the board for remaining employees. 

Increase Your Employee Retention Rate with PerceptionPredict

PerceptionPredict harnesses the power of predictive analysis to create data-driven candidate profiles that let companies revolutionize their recruitment and hiring processes.

Using advanced analytics, data mining, and unique statistical algorithms, PerceptionPredict creates unique candidate profiles called Performance Fingerprints. Pre-hire, they accurately forecast key performance indicators such as sales performance and length of tenure. 

This allows organizations to make strategic and optimal hiring choices, reliably reducing turnover and boosting performance. Our Performance Fingerprints have assisted in drastically reducing turnover for international organizations like Mercedes Benz and CrowdStrike. 

To learn more about how PerceptionPredict can decrease turnover at your organization, book a demo.