Category: Employee Retention

Having a sense of purpose at work can motivate us to work harder. It also makes us more fulfilled in our roles, even if our industry doesn’t pay as much as another.

More and more of us are being driven by a sense of purpose, rather than profit. 

Making money and paying bills is great, obviously. Unfortunately, COVID-19, climate change, and other factors have made many of us re-evaluate our lives. They’ve made us want to feel more in control and like we’re leaving our marks on the world.

Making a difference to other people’s lives, businesses, or the environment can deliver a sense of purpose at work. This motivates us to do more, improves job performance, and leaves us more satisfied at the end of the day.

No matter where or when employees work, it’s important they get the fulfillment that comes from a purposeful job.

Here are some tips to help you give your employees a greater sense of purpose at work:

Make your values clear

If you don’t know what you stand for, how can you hire employees who believe in the same things? 

Even if you do know what your values are, it doesn’t much matter if you don’t share them with the outside world—or with candidates during the interview process.

While it can be useful to share values on your website, social media, or on your company’s intranet, it’s not just about stating what they are. It’s about living them.

If you value inclusion, show how you make everyone feel like a part of the team in your email campaigns, employees’ LinkedIn profiles, and website content.

Similarly, if you value diversity, show how you embrace employees from different walks of life. Demonstrate how you help them overcome challenges and further their careers.

Alternatively, if you value open-mindedness, make sure that in meetings, you listen to everyone’s opinions and suggestions. Even if they seem unusual or random, it’s key that your response is consistent with your values.

Values mean nothing if you’re not living them or showing the outside world what they really are. Building a values-driven workplace is an important step towards ensuring employees can find purpose at work.

Ask your employees what matters to them

If you don’t ask what matters to your employees, how can you be sure you’re helping them live purposeful lives?

Every employee will value different things, and what they value will change over time. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask them, though.

If you make charitable donations, you could ask them which charity they’d like the company to donate to this year.

When you’re looking for a new cause to get behind, you could ask team members what matters to them and why.

Above all, if you’re stuck for ideas on how to provide a greater sense of purpose at work, you could just ask!

Make them feel heard

Employees should be able to voice their opinions at work without worrying they’ll be punished for going against the grain. 

You don’t want them to say anything that will upset or offend others, of course. For things like business decisions though, they should be able to say what they think without retribution.

When employees can voice their opinions freely, they feel more content, even if those opinions don’t lead to further action. 

In terms of purpose at work, it’s all about whether or not employees feel listened to, rather than driving any sort of internal decisions.

Value their feedback

Employees want to know their input matters. Taking action based on their opinions shows them that you listen to them. It also reinforces that your values align with theirs.

You won’t always be able to act on employees’ feedback. As I mentioned though, listening to them is still an important part of showing that you value their input.

Share business goals with them

When employees know what’s happening with your business, they’ll feel a greater sense of connection to it. As a result, they’ll also feel a greater sense of purpose at work.

Because they feel more connected to the company, they’ll be more likely to want to help out. With more insight into the business, they can more easily visualize what they’re working towards. 

It stops being a faceless corporation, and becomes something they’re a part of, too. Being a part of something bigger is a great way to give people more purpose at work.

Allow them to set their own goals

Once you’ve shared your business goals with the team, you could allow everyone to set their own goals based on the wider business objectives. 

This will further their sense of making a difference to things within your business. Even more so, it will give them a sense of control in their role.

Be eco-friendly

For many of us, climate change is a constant fear, especially after the events of this summer.

By showing that you’re an ethical, eco-friendly brand, you’ll attract employees who feel a strong sense of purpose towards their work and who are driven to make a difference in the world.

If you don’t value being environmentally friendly, depending on your industry, you may find it increasingly hard to hire. This is especially true as climate change makes a bigger and bigger impact on our world.

Conclusion 

Communicating your values to your employees and the outside world is key to giving employees a greater sense of purpose at work. 

When people understand your values, they know if you’re the right business for them to work with or not. 

It also helps you make better hiring decisions. Candidates who don’t fit your values will filter themselves out, providing you with better quality candidates from the start.

A greater sense of purpose at work also improves employee wellbeing, helps with talent retention, and gives you the satisfaction that you’re making a difference both to the world and in your employees’ lives. Is there anything more purposeful than that?

If you’re looking to expand feelings of purpose at work, it’s important to build strong connections both between colleagues, and between employees and the business itself. Workrowd can help.

Our user-friendly platform makes it easy to supercharge your employee experience, with a central hub for communications and activities alongside real-time analytics. If you want to unlock new insights and empower every employee with the tools they need to thrive, send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

8 strategies to boost employee attraction and retention in 2024

How to cultivate empathy at work—and why it matters

5 overlooked causes of employee disengagement

Analytics make the business world go ‘round. Even if we dislike them, there’s no denying they help us make more informed decisions. From sales to marketing to finance, every department needs them. People teams are no exception; tapping into the right HR analytics can lead to happier employees, faster business growth, and increased revenue.

What should you be tracking, though?

Which metrics can give you new insights into your workforce? What will improve employees’ lives and the life of your business, too?

We highlight five HR analytics examples you should be paying attention to below.

Engagement rate for employee programming

Employee groups, programs, and events improve many aspects of your business, such as diversity and inclusion, retention, and employee wellbeing. 

If employees aren’t participating in your programming, or you’re not sure what’s driving results, it’s time to expand your HR analytics.

Without real-time data on each of your employee experience initiatives, you won’t know how to maximize your impact. Is your programming reaching every team member? Are you offering the right types of groups, programs, and events? Is there anything missing?

Measuring the outcomes of your programming via once or twice yearly engagement surveys isn’t enough in today’s tough talent market. You need ongoing, real-time data to make the most of your employee experience investments.

Tools can help. Workrowd automatically collects engagement data for your programs and delivers it to you in easy-to-read dashboards. That way, you always know what’s working and where you can make improvements.

Retention/churn rate

Do you have a high churn rate? Or do employees stay and progress in your business?

This can be a tough stat to look at, especially if it’s high. Regardless, it’s an important metric to track as part of your HR analytics.

Some jobs and industries have a naturally higher employee turnover rate, such as sales or customer service. But if it’s a problem throughout the business, it may be a sign of a deeper, culture-based problem.

If there’s no room for employees to grow, or your workplace is toxic, this can increase your churn rate.

On the other hand, if employees feel comfortable and supported in their roles and like they’re making a real difference, they’re more likely to stay long-term.

If the issues you spot are department-specific, it’s worth considering…

Manager ratings

Sometimes, someone can be really great at one part of their job and terrible at another. Management roles are a great example. A lot of people can handle the paperwork part of management, but are terrible at the people management side. 

I’ve worked for people who fall into this category, and it doesn’t make for a nice working environment. In fact, the stress of this management style is part of why I have chronic health issues now. So, the way your manager behaves really does matter.

Asking employees to fill in feedback forms then pass them to their line manager is a bonkers practice. Unfortunately, it’s one I’ve seen all too often. If someone is being bullied, belittled or micromanaged by their boss, are they really going to feel comfortable passing on said feedback to that person?

Employee feedback should be honest, and they shouldn’t feel afraid or intimidated by their manager into providing nicer feedback. How can you analyze results that don’t tell you the full story?

If someone—regardless of rank—raises issues about their manager, they should be taken seriously. A position of power shouldn’t make someone immune to consequences of bad behavior.

If you struggle to hire for your managerial roles, and that’s why you’ve settled for someone who can do half the role, consider what your compensation package looks like. Is the pay too low? Are you combining two completely different skill sets that don’t work in one role? Are you hoping for a unicorn but settling for a donkey?

Managers need to be able to manage people as well as handle paperwork. It shouldn’t be an either/or situation. Use your HR analytics to spot managerial issues before they cost you.

Sick days

How content are your employees, really? Do they enjoy their jobs, or are they doing it just to pay the bills?

If you notice a pattern where a lot of employees are out with conditions such as chronic back pain or stress, it’s time to look at your workplace and culture.

Are employees sitting in uncomfortable chairs, or at bad desks, that are damaging their backs? 

Are they feeling pressured in their role, which is pushing their stress to unmanageable levels?

If you spot any patterns of recurring causes of illness—or an excessive amount of illnesses—talk to the employees who are experiencing these issues in a friendly, non-judgmental way. They’ll be more likely to open up to you if you speak to them like this. What they have to say may help you to unlock new insights that you hadn’t considered before.

Once you have this data, you can make changes to improve your workplace. You may need to make desk spaces more ergonomic, offer counseling to help employees manage stress, or look for ways to reduce their workload so that they don’t need to take so much time off.

Tracking sick time as part of your HR analytics approach ensures you can recognize issues with burnout and illness early enough to address them.

Down time

Do employees use their vacation days? When they take time off, do they feel guilty? 

How about responding to emails outside of working hours? Do they feel unable to take time off because they have too much to do?

I once worked with someone who was so busy that by the end of the year, she had almost 20 vacation days left to use.

But it was Christmastime—she couldn’t take the time off then, either. It was her department’s busiest time of year.

Employees should never feel so overworked that they don’t believe they can take a break. 

Breaks are an important part of us being able to work to the best of our capabilities. Without them, we’re less able to perform at our optimal physical or mental level, affecting our work and personal lives.

Tracking whether or not employees are taking PTO is an important piece of an effective HR analytics strategy.

Conclusion 

These are often overlooked areas that will help you unlock new insights into your workforce. They’ll give you information on how employees really feel in their roles, and what your workplace culture is actually like.

The deeper you go into the data as part of your HR analytics, the more you’ll reveal and the more improvements you can make.

Are you interested in automating data tracking and HR analytics for your employee programming? If so, we’d love to chat.

Drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com or vist our site to learn how our one-stop tool suite can help you to streamline processes, boost engagement, empower employee leaders, and automate data tracking and HR analytics.

8 strategies to boost employee attraction and retention in 2024

How to cultivate empathy at work—and why it matters

5 overlooked causes of employee disengagement

With employment rates increasing, and therefore a lower number of candidates for open roles, retaining employees and slowing turnover is more important than ever. Here are nine creative retention ideas for employees to help you keep your top talent:

1. Open communication

How much do you really share with your employees? Do you encourage them to share things with each other?

I’m not saying you have to share the specific details of your most embarrassing moments, but you should let employees know that they can share with you what’s going on with them and you won’t judge them or hold personal information against them.

2. Get rid of so-called ‘perks’

So-called perks like foosball tables, nap pods, and even chefs sound great. But in a lot of cases, they’re really just a way for businesses to keep their employees at work for longer. Which isn’t cool.

Employees deserve personal lives and time with their loved ones. Work shouldn’t take away from that.

Stop providing perks so that you can pay less for more work. Start paying employees for all of their contributions instead.

3. Pay more

It surprises me how many businesses I know of that believe they can get away with paying below market rate because they have so-called perks. 

On the surface these things can seem like a selling point, but when you look at the rising cost of living, many employees—and candidates—don’t want these shiny things anymore. They want to be paid what they’re worth at a company whose mission they can get behind.

4. Allow them to explore their interests

Allowing employees to explore their interests on company time—particularly when they’re relevant to their job—can be a great way to encourage them to stay. 

Studying can be expensive. Investing in your employees’ development shows you care about them and believe they have a long-term future working with you. Not only does this approach offer creative retention ideas for employees, but it also brings other benefits such as upskilling as well.

5. Let them move departments

Sometimes, boredom strikes. Employees may decide they want a new direction.

Instead of letting them go, you could offer them the opportunity to move departments. Maybe they’d like to do something more technical and would make a great junior developer, or they want to try a more customer-facing role and would be super at sales.

You should never underestimate the soft skills employees possess, or their company knowledge. They can be real assets to helping you achieve your business goals.

6. Be transparent

I feel like many companies talk about transparency, but then hide a lot of their figures from employees. That’s not transparency. 

Transparency is sharing everything: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This shows employees that everyone within the business is human, and that not every day is filled with rainbows. 

It can motivate employees to up their game, make them feel more included, and encourage more communication between everyone because the higher ups are communicating what, in some businesses, is a closely guarded secret.

7. Let them post on social media

Many businesses have social media policies that start and end with “don’t post about work on social media.” This is a really boring mindset, implies you don’t trust your employees, and shows you don’t understand social media.

Employee social media accounts can be incredibly powerful tools to market your business. Much more powerful than branded accounts.

For instance, 78% of salespeople who use social media outsell their peers.

Training people on how to use social media for sales or employee advocacy could be just the new skill they need to encourage them to stay.

You’ll never be able to monitor everything employees say on social media, which means that allowing them to share their thoughts about work says to the outside world that you trust your employees. 

This reflects well, attracts a higher caliber of candidate, and builds on the open atmosphere you’ve already established. This is one of the creative retention ideas for employees that is often overlooked.

8. Be flexible and accessible

Quite often, businesses claim to be flexible and accessible until someone comes along with a health condition, or personal situation, that doesn’t fit with their current way of operating. This can lead to the employee, if they get hired, having issues. Or it could mean you get a negative review from a candidate on a site like Glassdoor.

You don’t have to have all the answers–if you’re not differently abled, you won’t know what it’s like until someone talks about it with you, and every person’s situation is different—but being open to adapting how you do things is key. 

Saying one thing but doing another won’t fly any longer. Candidates and employees will see through it and, over time, you’ll find it harder to fill roles and your churn rate will get worse.

9. Treat employees with respect

Your employees are not automatons, robots, or AI. They all need to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom. 

Forcing them to eat at their desks, or limiting their bathroom breaks, shows a lack of respect for their very existence. It also says that you don’t value their health. 

There’s never a reason someone should have to eat at their desk. Meetings can wait an hour for someone to eat a decent meal.

Beauty Pie takes this so seriously that they have a “no meetings o’clock” scheduled into everyone’s calendars so that they get a break during the day. 

Employees deserve respect. And they deserve time to themselves. If they do their job to a high standard, that’s all that matters.

Of course, if you feel something is amiss, talk to them. But do it from a place of compassion, not accusation. You’ll get a better response and come out with a better solution.

Conclusion 

Retaining employees is about more than just offering them shiny objects and a fancy office. Those perks are becoming increasingly transparent to a savvy workforce of people who don’t want to be superglued to a desk, laptop, or phone. 

Instead, leverage some of these creative retention ideas for employees. Your team members want flexibility, respect, and fair pay. The more you prioritize these things, the more likely you’ll be to attract the top candidates in your industry and retain them.

If you’re looking to implement several of these creative retention ideas for employees with one tool, Workrowd can help. Our platform makes it easy to streamline communications; market, manage, and measure employee interest groups, programs, and events; cultivate real relationships, and more. Drop by our site or send us an email at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

8 strategies to boost employee attraction and retention in 2024

How to cultivate empathy at work—and why it matters

5 overlooked causes of employee disengagement

Experts are warning of a ‘turnover tsunami’ poised to hit the U.S. in the coming months as businesses reopen and the economy rebounds. As part of this shakeup, employers will lose a wealth of institutional knowledge, but may have the opportunity to acquire some new skills they found it difficult to recruit for prior to and during the pandemic. One thing that’s for certain is that many employers will have to say farewell to some star players. This goodbye doesn’t have to be forever, though. The opportunity to rehire some of these individuals may present itself down the line, especially if the company invests in a corporate alumni network.

Just as community and communication are absolutely critical for current employees, keeping former employees connected to colleagues and company news is similarly important. Corporate alumni networks are the easiest way to achieve this, and you may even find that employees have already built one or more informal communities that you can tap into to get started. Read on to learn more about the benefits of corporate alumni networks and the first steps you should consider when looking to start one.

3 reasons why starting a corporate alumni network is one of the best decisions you can make this year

Recruiting top talent is an expensive endeavor. Estimates suggest that the cost to hire a new employee can stretch from the mid-four-figures all the way up into the tens of thousands of dollars. Accordingly, it can be quite a blow when a star player chooses to leave your organization after all the time and money you’ve invested in bringing and keeping them there. As mentioned above though, all of that work doesn’t have to go to waste. You can leverage a corporate alumni network to keep your top performers in the company loop so that when it’s time to make their next move, you’re the first place they think of going.

If former employees maintain strong relationships with current staff, and frequently see exciting updates about your company’s progress, they’ll be much more likely to tire of being on the outside looking in and want to return to the team. In other words, corporate alumni networks are a great way to build FOMO, or a fear of missing out among those who have left, in order to passively encourage them to return. Approximately 15% of employees say they’ve boomeranged back to a former employer, and 40% say they would consider it. This number is heavily skewed towards younger generations, with 46% of Millennials saying they would consider boomeranging back to a company they previously worked for, while just 33% of Gen X-ers and 29% of Baby Boomers reportedly said the same.

Bringing back top talent after they’ve been with another employer for a period of time has numerous benefits. You already know they can be successful with your organization, so it greatly derisks the hiring process. Furthermore, while they may have been stars when they were initially with your company, they’ve now had the opportunity to learn new skills and systems, so they’ll be even better equipped this second time around. They’ll also likely need less training because they’ll already know how a lot of things work at your organization. Last but certainly not least, they’ll likely appreciate all the great things about your company culture more than ever after having seen what else is out there. While every situation will differ, from a high-level perspective there are almost no downsides to bringing former colleagues back onto the team. Running a corporate alumni network helps ensure that you keep in touch with these employees to help facilitate their return, no matter what they do next.

Another benefit of keeping former employees involved through a corporate alumni network is for employer branding purposes. More than 60% of GEN Z jobseekers prefer to hear about opportunities directly from a current or former employee. When looking to recruit from this demographic, the more employee ambassadors you have on the ground, the more successful you’ll be. Sharing positive company updates with former team members will ensure they keep your company in mind when speaking with potential jobseekers, and will set them up to make a strong pitch.

How to get started with building a corporate alumni network

While it can confer many benefits, launching a corporate alumni network doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, it can be pretty straightforward. Follow the steps below and you’ll be off to a great start:

1. Update processes to collect the necessary data. In order to cultivate a robust corporate alumni network, you’ll need email addresses for employees after they’ve left the company. You may choose to ask employees for their email address as part of the off-boarding process, or you could even set up a system to provide employees alumni addresses as many universities do. In theory, you could also keep the email address the employee originally applied to your company with, however that may have changed in the time since they started. Regardless of which method you choose, having a way to contact employees after they’ve left is key to your corporate alumni network’s success.
2. Ask employees about existing networks. Former employees may have already assembled somewhere whether over WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Slack, or elsewhere. Tap into these networks, and if it makes sense, explore potentially formalizing them. In other words, if there is already a solid base of alumni congregating on LinkedIn, then it probably doesn’t make sense to reinvent the wheel. Just put some power and time into ensuring consistent activity in the LinkedIn community, and you can ramp up much more quickly than if you started from scratch.
3. Pick your platform. If there isn’t an existing community you can tap into, then you’ll need to decide where you want to host your network. The options above are a start, or there is even dedicated corporate alumni network software you can purchase. Workrowd can actually fulfill this use case as well, by simply having a private krowd where you invite past employees to join with their non-company email addresses. Whatever you choose, make sure that it’s flexible to meet your needs, and above all, user-friendly. If your platform is clunky or difficult to use, former employees won’t make the time to learn it.
4. Identify your manager. Few communities actually run successfully on their own, so you’ll need to dedicate at least part of an employee’s time to managing and maintaining the corporate alumni network. This individual should be in charge of inviting new employees as they leave, making sure they get signed up, updating information and ensuring everything stays fresh, etc. Without someone whose job it is to keep the community running, these spaces can stall and grow stagnant quite quickly, so don’t overlook the importance of assigning someone this role.
5. Invite former team members. Last but certainly not least, reach out to as many former team members as you have contact information for in order to start building up your network. While you may not be able to reach everyone, and not all of those whom you do reach will be interested if it’s a long time after they left, starting with a solid base of members will help set your corporate alumni network up for success.

Staying in touch with employees after they leave is an important piece of the talent management puzzle in today’s economy. If you’re not keeping star players connected to your company’s ecosystem, you’re wasting crucial dollars between the investment you made to bring them to the team in the first place combined with the money you could save by rehiring them down the line. If you’d like to explore Workrowd’s solution for a corporate alumni network that you can manage in the same place as your communities for current employees, drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com. We’d love to hear from you.

All clichés aside, there’s no denying that the past months have been challenging on every level. As we enter yet another patch of uncharted waters, it’s important to continue iterating on your People strategy to ensure that employees’ needs are being addressed. Unfortunately, HR teams are going to have more to do than ever as we begin reopening offices, with myriad staffing decisions to be made, workplace policies to reimagine and revise, and extensive trauma, grief, and burnout among team members to manage. Employees may be learning to navigate new familial and/or financial circumstances, different economic climates, and more, and People teams will have to adapt to help everyone remain engaged and productive.

With so much to manage and so many restrictions to consider around reopening offices, it can be easy to let things like employee events and diversity and inclusion fall by the wayside. Ultimately however, this is the time when employees need community and support more than ever. Allowing company culture to evolve unchecked while so many people are emotionally struggling can enable unhealthy dynamics that will take years to reverse. Facilitating more remote work without strategies to keep colleagues connected essentially guarantees breakdowns in communication that will detract from your business goals.

Furthermore, abandoning diversity and inclusion efforts during this critical time has the potential to reverse all of the recruitment work your company has done and make it more difficult to hire diverse individuals in the future. This is a dangerous proposition given that diverse companies outperform industry norms by 35%. As budgets tighten and difficult decisions need to be made, employee programming and benefits can seem like obvious targets. Ultimately though, most companies will find that in the long-term, savings from such cuts will not outweigh the negative impacts on retention and output.

Luckily, there are low-cost ways to offer employee supports to both retain your talent and manage your budget during these challenging times. In the aftermath of the first wave of the virus, a few pieces of the engagement puzzle are going to become more important to employees than ever before, so you can get the most bang for your buck by focusing efforts there. The real key to keep in mind is flexibility. This spans across all aspects of your organization, from wellbeing benefits, including mental health, to remote work options.

For instance, if you can make time to put in the work upfront, you can likely expand the scope of your company’s health benefits without significant expense, enabling employees to do what’s best for their own households. Offering options for additional services, even if the company isn’t financing them, will save employees the time of seeking out providers on their own, relieving stress and ensuring they can meet their needs. Similarly, enabling employees to set their own schedule of being in or out of the office can help them juggle their varied responsibilities through this transition and truly focus on their work rather than worrying how they’ll manage.

On the traditional engagement front, from happy hours and company parties to in-office perks, the model will obviously need to change. The new path forward doesn’t necessarily need to be work or capital-intensive, though. We write a lot about employee empowerment on this blog, and the concept applies here, too. Ask your employees what would be helpful, connect them with each other for support and mentorship, enable exploration within the organization so that if you’re in a position where you have to restructure, you can make the most of the people you already have. None of these strategies require significant budget, but they can go a long way towards keeping morale up amidst the current and upcoming challenges.

Lastly, for those who will miss the classic party approach, one upside of having to organize remote events instead is that it is significantly less expensive than paying for venues, etc. Hold remote happy hours where people bring their favorite beverage and share why; organize small groups to cook or just eat dinner together over Zoom and watch your employees build camaraderie on a whole new level; offer online classes or events that people can attend with their children to offer some relief to parents who are low on time (and likely patience at this point), and develop connections across departments. Double down on your employee resource groups to ensure that your most underrepresented employees feel valued and appreciated.

It doesn’t have to be costly to sustain employee engagement through times of economic uncertainty, but failing to prioritize it inevitably will be. Ensure your employees have what they need as we look towards reopening offices. If you’re looking for an all-in-one platform to build transparency around your programming for every employee, whether in-person or remote, Workrowd can help. Visit our site, or reach out at hello@workrowd.com. We’d love to learn more and see how we can work together.