Being able to retain your employees is crucial, not only for the continuity of information, for the morale of the team but it also has huge commercial value and directly impacts the success of your business.
Employees leaving can create organisational issues and can be very costly to replace. It’s no wonder that many business owners and HR Managers are, now more than ever, looking for ways to help retain their talent.
Improving your employee retention can be an extremely difficult task – and it’s not only down to you, and you alone – but with the right expertise, there are lots of places you can start. It can also put you in a pressurised position if you’ve lost some members of your team and can be really stressful – we know, we’ve been there!
At Inclusive Consulting, we’re experts in both attracting and retaining talent. So if you’re looking for ways to help retain your employees, take a read of our top tips:
Look After the Wellbeing of Your Employees
Are you supporting your team? Do you actively endorse flexible working? Do you keep your employees engaged?
Employees that are happy at work will always perform better. Creating an inclusive and engaging environment at work is crucial in allowing your team to feel supported and to perform to the best of their ability.
Rather than take a top-down approach and dictate how wellbeing looks for you and your team you could opt to enrol in courses that help improve your employees’ wellbeing. These types of courses take an inclusive and individual approach to identify how and why individuals fall out of balance.
Our workshops are designed to enable individuals to look at their own stress patterns and how their nervous system reacts. As well as providing tools and techniques that we can use every day to improve our every day mental health.
A recent survey by Glassdoor showed that companies that engage in these types of courses generally achieve 26% greater year-on-year increase in revenue compared to those that don’t.

Provide Employees with Mentoring and Opportunities to Develop
Without opportunities for career development, employees may become disengaged and uninspired at work. And we don’t mean simply providing the next step, salary or role – but looking at development from a diverse and holistic perspective.
A mentor or a coach can be a great way to help individuals figure out what they want, what’s missing and then provide practical assistance to help them get there.
In fact, according to a report by Gallup, a huge 87% of respondents said that development opportunities are an important job feature.
Implementing Business Mentoring Schemes into your company can provide a brilliant retention strategy for some of your brightest talent.
Mentoring enables employees to gain valuable time and access with some of the most experienced and senior people in your business to aid their development.
It also helps new starters embed into the business – assigning mentors to help them settle and thrive in their first year with you. This could be especially useful if you’ve taken on new starters throughout the current pandemic where remote working is in place.
You could also provide your employees with wider business exposure to build their understanding of the company and industry. Introducing them to relevant people will help grow their network and show them that they are valued.

Utilise Ability Assessments and Development Plans
An Ability Assessment is a great way to help find areas in which your employees can develop their skills. It is a skills-based assessment that is tailored to the specific competencies required for each role.
We find that individuals are nearly always keen to understand how they work, what makes them tick and better understand their own approach to their career.
They help employers obtain ideas about the employee’s skills & abilities and recognise the areas from which the employee might benefit from further training and development.
You could also create a professional development roadmap for each individual, focusing on what new skills and experience are required. There should be a timeline and SMART goals in place to ensure it is clear and achievable.
Alongside a development plan, you could task your employees with a stretch project. Simply set up a long-term project with a bigger challenge. This will empower your rising stars to keep growing and take on more responsibility.

Focus on Team Building in The Workplace
Team building exercises can often seem quite cliché. But the power of having a close-knit team in the workplace is something that shouldn’t be underestimated.
With a lot of us now working remotely, team building is especially important to help with building and sustaining morale. If employees feel that they are part of an inclusive team, then they are much more likely to feel productive and settled at work.
At Inclusive Consulting, we are accredited to run team development and strength profiling activities called SDI (Strength Deployment Inventory). This is particularly good for helping new teams get to know one another, or in situations where conflict is affecting productivity, morale, and employee turnover.

Show Your Employees Recognition
It’s surprising how often people aren’t praised for their contributions, which can negatively impact employee work ethic and overall productivity.
So what does recognition look like?
- Credit where credit is due – being careful to name their contributions in senior management meetings and to others to raise their profile. As an added bonus, you could ask someone more senior to acknowledge them directly.
- Offering new role responsibilities – to widen and broaden their experience, a new job title, promotion, or responsibility. But always offset this with a financial reward: it’s important to fairly compensate hard work to motivate and retain your talent. Too often businesses give their employees greater responsibility – and therefore more work – without fairly compensating them financially.
- Critically what is important to the individual? Would more time off be beneficial? Are there other benefits that you are able to give them?
- Ensure that they feel part of the team and that their contribution is helping to drive the business forward. Ask their opinions and involve them in decision making.

Promote Your Company’s Values
Work has long become more than a source of income for many of us. Nowadays, often individuals want something more fulfilling and where we find purpose.
With strong company values, employees feel inspired and develop a stronger attachment to both their job and their employer. This will greatly increase their loyalty to their company and position.
Particularly in periods of uncertainty, employees often question their current career path and their employer. If you have strong company values and actively promote what you stand for, then you will be much more likely to bring your team together. It’s not enough to just promote these values though: you have to really live them through the day to day choices and decisions that you and the business make.
Three basic steps to follow to begin with are:
1. Get clear on what your company stands for
2. Define a set of core values
3. Create actions to back them up
And then critically: form a team of people around you that help you stay accountable to these values. Don’t be afraid to be challenged on your decisions – strong debate, checks, and balances will help you make better decisions.

Coach Your Leaders
Unfortunately, it’s a well-recognised notion that many people leave managers, not companies.
It’s crucial that your leaders are supported as they work through the tensions of managing personal and organisational needs. This will allow them to lead effectively and will help them become more approachable to employees.
At Inclusive Consulting, we offer confidential 1-on-1 leadership coaching and mentorship of business leaders.
We recognise that it can be lonely at the top! And we know it’s important to have people at your side to support you and your wellbeing in order to make better business decisions. To find out more about our leadership coaching services, you can visit our website here

At Inclusive Consulting, we believe that retaining talent isn’t about ensuring that people will stay, but enabling them to thrive and flourish whilst they are with you.
To find out more about how to retain your employees or any of the services that we offer, please call us on (0114) 2469849 or email us at hello@incconsulting.co.uk.
Alternatively, you can send us a message here.