Business Leaders Share Their Strategies For Decreasing Employee Turnover and Keeping High Performing Employees

Many companies are struggling to retain employees. With so many recovering from a year without reliable work, candidates are hoping to enter a workforce that supports them and their futures. These aren’t requests to shy away from, companies should be listening to the needs of their employees and candidates. Check out some helpful tips these business leaders have found to increase employee retention.

Highlight Your Employees Unique Skills

Create opportunities for each of your employees to shine by getting to know them and what their particular strengths are. Allow for them to utilize their natural strengths so that they feel productive and successful in their work. This will help your employees maintain a healthy level of confidence in their roles, which will make them feel good about working at the company long-term.

Amber Theurer, Chief Marketing Officer ivee

Give Opportunities to Move Up and Earn More

If your employees feel like there are opportunities to move up, you’ll retain a much higher amount of team members. One of the biggest problems I hear from applicants is that most jobs are entry level, and remain that way. A lot of jobs are designed this way, and while that might save some money in the short term, it doesn’t make for a lasting team. Build loyalty with your employees by structuring ways to move up and gain more opportunities, and earn more money!

Dylan Trussell, CMO Culprit Underwear

Make Sure It’s a Good Fit

We believe the best way to retain employees is to first recruit and select those who align well with our company’s culture, which is energetic, competitive, embraces continuous improvement and operates with candor and humility. We purposely look for people with a passion for building their own physical and mental resilience, and who enjoy helping others do the same. This is Kayezen’s guiding principle, and having this shared purpose helps to get everyone “rowing in the same direction” and provides a deeper connection to the work we’re doing. This is a large part of what helps us retain employees, because our people know they are free to excel based on their own unique capabilities, to grow new skill sets, to go after new opportunities, and they will be supported when taking on new challenges and solving problems when they arise.

Eric Kaye, Founder and Chief Evangelist Kayezen Vector

Give Constructive Criticism

Decreasing employee turnover is a delicate balance between helping your employees and being firm with constructive criticism. If anything, your employees should be able to view your constructive criticism as helpful and encouraging, among other practices to enforce this behavior. Promoting self care and self improvement with your employees is also a great way to show them you care about their improvement within the company.

Eddi Huai, CEO Luna Blanket

Anonymous Employee Surveys

To retain your employees, you have to know how they honestly feel about their employment. One of the best ways to do this is to learn from anonymous employee surveys. Without fear of retribution, your team can comment anonymously and rate everything from their salary to tasks and their managing team. Then, create a spreadsheet and input this information. Track it into the next quarter and see if engagement is increasing – or decreasing.

Jordan Duran, CEO and Co-Founder 6 Ice

Be A Collaborative Supervisor

Show that you are willing to work with your employees. A boss is like a teacher, ultimately you are a facilitator for what goes on in your company and your decisions on hiring affect the culture of your business. If your team feels like they can approach you and work with you, you’ll end up retaining your highest performers. When you’ve hired the right team, it shouldn’t feel like you need to micromanage every element of an employee’s performance.

Luke Hotchin, Co-Founder Kenzzi

Employees Should Feel Valued

Decreasing employee turnover also helps when you can create roles that make your employees feel as if they are a valuable asset to the company, as opposed to a cog in the machine. Using their unique talents to incorporate into their current jobs will help them grow as a part of the company while also contributing. When people believe they are making a difference at a company, they are more likely to stay.

Michael Fischer, Founder Elite HRT

Make Fun a Priority

When employees can have fun at work, they are much more likely to stay around. Keeping things light will make your team feel comfortable, relaxed and excited to come to work. Of course, stress at times cannot be avoided but you are looking ahead by cultivating a workplace based on positivity.

Steve Martocci, Co-Founder and CEO Splice

Flexible Schedules

Be flexible! Now that we have spent over a year working mostly from home, our company understands the value of work-life flexibility. Allowing your employees to work on their own time promotes more efficient productivity and decreases your chances of micromanaging. As long as your employees are producing great results at a systematic rate, they should be allowed to take an extra break to walk around the neighborhood or close their laptop an hour early. Hiring the right individuals is a factor in this level of flexibility; hire well to maximize performance and minimize employee turnover.

Danielle Calabrese, COO De La Calle

Company Culture

Making sure you have a great company culture is key to decreasing employee turnover. Employees are less likely to leave if they feel like they can communicate with their coworkers in a pleasant manner that makes them want to come into work to see everyone. While being virtual in the pandemic, we also facilitated that culture by facilitating one-on-ones with management and new employees, while also getting Doordash gift cards for employees to eat lunch with others who normally don’t work with their team.

Eric Wu, COO and Co-Founder Gainful

Offer Incentives

To decrease your employee turnover, really focus on your company’s culture, and be sure that it is one of inclusivity and high engagement. Offer incentives for a job well done, and provide opportunities for growth, as well as continued learning. Knowing that there isn’t a ceiling they’ll eventually hit will help you retain your best talent, especially.

Travis Killian, CEO and Owner Everlasting Comfort

Hire Thoughtfully

The easiest and most effective way to ensure your employees happily stay working for your business and continue performing well is to hire well in the first place. Ensuring you are staffing your business with highly motivated and trustworthy employees will relieve you of turnover worries in the future.

Tiraz Shirah, CEO and Founder The Blink Bar

Be Transparent and Approachable

Be transparent with your team members. When employees are left in the dark about company policies or expectations, you end up with a lack of trust with the people you’ve hired. For example, if something is changing within the company it’s important that you communicate those changes clearly to all of your staff. Always make sure that they are comfortable asking you questions and voicing concerns.

Lucas Nudel, Pride Palace

Do Your Research

When you’re trying to hold onto top-tiered talent who could bring something new to the team, do your research. How is employee retention, overall, in your particular field? Where do you stand against your competitors? If you can ensure that your employees are happy and engaged, they won’t jump ship easily to explore other offers, then you’ll attract like-minded applicants as well.

Heidi Robinson, Chief Operating Officer Because Market

Offer Competitive Salaries

To be frank, the most effective strategy for decreasing your employee turnover rate is to compensate them well. At the end of the day, if your compensation is competitive with other business opportunities, your employees are likely to stay. You have hired these individuals based on their talents and experience, and their compensation should reflect that.

Joe Parentaeu, Co-Founder Fable Home

Little Bonuses Go A Long Way

Express your gratitude in a monetary way. You can continue to praise your employees for the work that they do, but if you are not properly compensating them, they will do the saem work for a business that will compensate them better. In the start-up community there is a need for highly skilled workers with driven personalities, which is why there is alway such a large amount of turnover. Show your employees that you appreciate them.

Tyler Boyd, CEO and Co-Founder Squeeze

Hire People Interested in What You Do

More important than credentials is a passion for the work that your company does. If your hires have no connection to what you do, they are more likely to see your company as a stopping place for another opportunity.

Michael Weissman, COO Soundcloud

Welcome Employee Feedback

Welcome all levels of employees to provide feedback. When working on company wide projects and long-term goals, ensure you are allowing open communication with employees. Inviting regular feedback builds a welcoming community of employees, and allows feedback to go both ways. Watch and listen to your employees, then provide them with constructive feedback to ensure they are prospering within their position.

Chris Vaughn, CEO and Co-Founder Saucey

Stability is Key

Compensate fairly and offer raises when you can. Employees will feel motivated to show the work they can do and are more likely to stick around the more stable they feel. If they are hourly, make sure they’re hours are as solid as they can be. Security is so important and in many lines of work, hours are not always guaranteed. If you can offer that safety, you’ll be a step ahead of other businesses that might be hiring similar candidates.

James Sun, Founder BeautyTap

Cultivate Trust

Create a trustworthy and inviting community. In a female run business, there is an unsurprising level of compassion and emotion that goes into hiring our employees. Yes, we want to have the best talent and the hardest workers, but we also want employees that enjoy the work that they do and want the business to succeed. Opening the floor for company wide communication is a great way to get your employees involved in decision making on all levels.