Work Environment and Employee Retention

What makes a company a desirable place to work? For many employees, a company's work environment determines whether it's a desirable employer. A work environment is comprised of the atmosphere in which employees work and the attitude a company has toward its employees.
A positive work environment is one of the most important reasons employees stay with a company. If the environment is poor, it's likely people won't want to be there. You can create a positive work environment by following the suggestions provided below.

1. Demonstrate a genuine concern for employees, their families, and their communities.

The first way to create a positive work environment is to show employees genuine concern for them, their families, and their community. No matter what the size of your company is, you can show employees that they're important and valued.
What can your company do specifically to show it cares? It can donate money to community charities, help with employees' needs for child care and elder care, send flowers when a new child is born to an employee or when there is a death in an employee's family, and even hire a masseuse to give employees chair massages during stressful work periods. When companies do these things, employees feel valued.
Working for a company that cares often makes employees feel connected to and proud of their company. Employees may feel there's honor in working for a company that respects people as well as the demands of business.

2. Support a commitment to a work/life balance.

Another way to create a positive work environment is to support a commitment to a work/life balance. There was once a definite line between what was done during work hours and what was done on an employee's personal time. Today this line is blurred. Employees can now do their banking at the office and their work at home.
Employees today work, on average, far more hours than they did 25 years ago. In fact, recent studies show today's workers, especially in high-tech fields, work an average of 60 hours a week.
Supporting a work/life balance means embracing the new realities of the workplace. For example, your may want to ensure that your company sets reasonable deadlines to make sure your employees work an average of 40 hours a week. Then when employees do have to work more to meet a deadline, it's not such a big deal.
Also, be generous with vacation time, holidays, and the number of personal days your employees get. In return, you'll get a dedicated and motivated work force. When a company recognizes and accommodates its workers' needs to balance work and life demands, employees are more loyal and less likely to leave.

3. Provide an appealing physical environment.

The third way to create a positive work environment is to provide an appealing physical environment. There are 120 hours in a five-day workweek. If you account for eight hours of sleep each night, that leaves 80 waking hours. That means that employees spend half of their waking hours at work. And many of today's employees work far more than that. Pleasant surroundings raise the quality of the work experience.
A pleasant environment can be achieved by encouraging employees to "make themselves at home" in their own areas by displaying personal items. The physical environment is also enhanced with windows, good lighting, plants, works of art, and alternatives to cubicles.
Try using low cubicle walls so employees can see one another, and provide common areas in which employees can visit with one another or take a break. Most conversations begin as social exchanges but often return to work-related topics. When that happens, valuable ideas emerge. If not, employees get a needed break.
Also, try to keep your work environment informal, creative, and fun. If possible, opt for a relaxed dress code and provide comfortable meeting rooms. You want your employees to enjoy coming to work.
Think about the companies in which you've worked. Does one stand out in your mind as the all-time best place to work? If so, what made that company better than the others? Chances are you liked being there because of a positive work environment. Remember, having a positive work environment is an important factor in retaining employees.

Benefits and Employee Retention

Is your company an exceptional employer? It used to be that the benefit of working for a company was a paycheck. Only exceptional companies offered health and life insurance benefits. Now employees expect such benefits. Therefore, to be considered exceptional, today's companies have to offer even more extensive benefit packages.
Companies that have generous and flexible benefit programs have lower turnover. So what kinds of benefits should your company offer to recruit and retain employees? Two factors employees look for in companies today are discussed below.

1. A generous benefit plan
The first way to retain workers is to offer a generous benefit plan. In surveys, employees list benefits as one of the most important reasons they stay with a company. Health and life insurance benefits are standard, but to stand out as an employer of choice, your company must ensure that its benefit program offers many options to employees.
Your company's benefits are available to everyone, but not every employee will use every benefit. Having a variety of benefit choices shows your employees that you value each of them. The more benefits you offer employees, the more likely they'll be to stay with you. For example, you may want to subsidize or reimburse employees for child care or elderly care costs, fitness club memberships, or educational programs that enhance an employee's knowledge.

2. A flexible corporate attitude
Another way to retain employees with benefits is to have a flexible corporate attitude. Work is more dynamic and creative than it was 50 years ago. Fewer factory and routine jobs are available. Much of today's work can be done anywhere there's an Internet connection and access to a company's intranet. This means the paradigm of a 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday workweek is becoming obsolete.
It used to be that a supervisor could look out his office window at 9 a.m. and see his staff busily working. Now a supervisor may see empty desks as employees come in at different hours or work from home on certain days. As the type of work people do has changed, so have corporate attitudes about when and where that work gets done.
More and more employers are allowing for flexible schedules and telecommuting by their employees. Often, employees set their own schedules. Supervisors meet with employees once a week and keep in touch through e-mail. This has meant that management has had to let go of some control and can no longer micromanage, but usually the employees work just as hard—and are often happier.
Many companies are also recognizing the need for their employees to better balance work and life. These companies have accepted the fact that today's workers often value family over work responsibilities. They want employees to satisfy their obligations to the company as well as to their families. Therefore, these companies are willing to allow employees to adjust their schedules so they can meet both demands.
Technology plays a big part in making these 21st-century schedules work. Even when they're away from the office, employees can easily keep in touch with managers and clients using a variety of tools, such as e-mail, faxes, cellular phones, and the Internet. These technology tools enable employees to work seamlessly and meet deadlines, no matter where they are.
Benefits are important to every worker. The more you can offer and fit into your corporate culture, the less likely employees will be to leave for a company that offers better benefits. A generous benefit plan and a flexible corporate attitude are two factors today's employees look for in an employer. Remember, you can retain the valuable employees you have and recruit new ones by offering excellent benefits.

Monetary Compensation and Employee Retention

As the common saying goes, "You get what you pay for." In surveys conducted to determine why employees stay with a company, money is ranked fairly low in importance. But a chance to make more money somewhere else is often the reason many people leave their jobs.
So how much of a factor is money? The fact is that people stay with companies if they feel adequately compensated, even though many say money is not their No. 1 concern. Think about your job. Would you stay if you were getting paid peanuts?
Money is at the heart of the business world. Any strategy for keeping your valuable employees is going to have to involve money. Three effective strategies you can use to retain employees with monetary compensation are discussed below.

1. Offer adequate salaries.
People don't like to talk about salaries, since it's not considered polite. Many people will say, "It's not about the money," when talking about their jobs. However, most people will leave a company if they're offered more money elsewhere. Like it or not, people need money to survive, so paying employees adequate salaries is the first and most important way to keep them.

2. Offer stock options.
Offering stock options is the second strategy you can follow to retain employees with monetary compensation. This is a good way to compensate employees without busting your budget. When employees hold company stock, they're investors, not just assets. Treating employees as investors shows they're valued by the organization—they're not just values to the organization.

3. Offer cash incentives.
The third method for retaining employees with monetary compensation is to offer cash incentives such as bonuses, rewards, and profit-sharing programs. These are good ways to immediately compensate and reward employees for their contributions to your company's success.

When employees know they'll be rewarded, they'll be more inclined to stay. You can use two approaches when offering cash incentives.
Project-completion rewards - You can offer employees project-completion rewards. Offer employees on key projects a $5,000 to $10,000 bonus for staying and completing a project. Most employees will stay for their bonuses.
Cash rewards for exceeding goals - When the company is successful, you can reward employees with cash. When your company meets or exceeds projected financial goals, ensure that all employees share in the profits. This shows employees that your company recognizes how its employees' contributions affect the bottom line. Although most employees don't like to admit it, money is a huge motivator for how and where people work. A strong monetary compensation system, which could include stock options or cash rewards, should be a part of your retention plan.

Working with Managers to Improve Retention

Companies don't cause employees to leave—people in companies cause employees to leave. Employees often leave companies because of conflicts with people, usually people in authority.
Employees are more likely to stay with a company when they enjoy their co-workers, feel respected, and know they're valued by their managers—in other words, when they feel connected to the people in their company.

Managers can improve retention by applying strategies for developing strong connections with employees. As a human resources professional, you can work with your managers to help improve employee retention. Specifically, you can help managers build and maintain employee connections in the following ways.

1. Encourage managers to ask employees for honest feedback.
The first way managers can build and maintain employee connections is to ask employees for honest feedback about work situations. Managers need to find out if their employees are happy with the company and with their jobs. They should take the time to ask pointed questions and listen to the answers. This may require some prodding on the part of the manager. Employees aren't likely to be forthcoming with criticism or negative feedback at first. Managers should be patient but persistent. Eventually, employees will feel comfortable confiding in their manager if their manager works to build relationships with them.

2. Encourage managers to be straightforward and honest with employees.
Another strategy managers can use to build and maintain employee connections is to be straightforward and honest with employees when communicating company information. Managers should keep staff members informed about what's going on in the company and should tell employees good and bad news in a sincere and straightforward way. Otherwise, employees may hear rumors and jump to their own conclusions.

Have you ever had a manager who didn't keep you informed about company business decisions? Did you find out about decisions that affected you from your co-workers, or worse, from an outside source? How did that make you feel about your manager? Managers can build trust with employees by keeping them informed. Employees are loyal to their managers when they feel connected to their managers. Managers earn respect when they communicate information in an open and honest way.

3. Encourage managers to align work assignments with employee interests and skills.
The third strategy managers can use to build and maintain employee connections is to align work assignments with employee interests and skills. When managers get to know their employees' interests, strengths, and weaknesses, they are better able to assign work in such a way that employees will be engaged and successful. In addition, they should try to give employees options that coincide with the company's demands and the employees' interests.

Managers can help retain valuable employees by developing strong connections with their employees. Are managers in your company trained well to do that? If not, work with them to help them apply the strategies for developing strong connections with employees, which in turn can help your company's retention efforts.

What's in a Name?

Lots. Interesting designations keep staff motivated!

Title works and keeps employees in good humour. While the debate on monetary versus job satisfaction as an engagement tool rages on, India Inc, has discovered a novel way not just to keep its flock together, but happy too. Scores of companies are bringing a designation dimension to a corporate framework. Right from engaging top management in various key roles, to motivating and ‘exciting’ employees about the organisation’s charted vision, scores of companies are customising and coming up with offbeat designations to define roles with clarity. And give a notional sense of achievement to the employees in the process. Cisco India has a chief globalisation officer in Wim Elfrink and a senior manager, diversity & inclusion, Tracy Ann Curtis. This reflects Cisco’s global strategy of shifting from a geographical focus to a business management approach focused on skill sets and talents. Not to be left behind, IBM India has a work-life integration leader, Kalpana Veeraraghavan, a diversity leader besides a chief fun-officer. Similarly, Sapient has a director of people success in Binoo Wadhwa and designation like chief brand architect, chief privacy officer, chief competitive officer, to name a few. Some time back, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy’s becoming ‘chief mentor’ has expanded the scope of his role. If mentoring of Mr Murthy’s calibre is aimed at sustaining leadership, the designation that made news recently was ‘gardener’, when Mindtree chief Subroto Bagchi donned the new role to shape the aspirations of the workforce. Analysts see it as an apparent attempt to keep excitement alive. “Designations are all about ego massage,” says EMA partners International managing partner K Sudarshan. “After a point, the fatigue of designations begins to set in and one needs to be innovative to keep it at bay.” Besides, in young organisations where the workforce is energetic and full of life, these kind of initiatives help attract attention. Add to this is ever-diversifying companies and newer areas of operation, which calls for focused attention to people issues, like work-life balance, globalisation, diversity and privacy. A cross section of people say that designations are a motivational and exciting tool that can help employees to be in sync with the organisation’s vision and mission. “Exciting designations are fundamental to every organisation and mentoring or developing leadership is an internal challenge for companies if they want to sustain their vision,” says Take Solutions’ vision holder-cum-vice chairman H R Srinivasan. For over six years now, since the organisation came into being, Srinivasan has been the vision holder. The vice chairman designation was added against his name a year ago. But titles gain more relevance, especially at the lower levels within organisations. “Designations like chief impression officer (for a receptionist) or a car manager (instead of a driver), are ways of showing respect to the positions and functions,” says Blueshift chairman Sankaran P Raghunathan. “Such designations also act as motivators as roles like that of a receptionist are the ones that create the first and lasting impression for a company. Assigning designations like front leading officer or a chief impression officer will work much better and motivate employees, than fancy titles, as the jobs too get the required significance.” Two years ago, Chennai-based GRT hotel chain introduced the designation loss-prevention manager to lend more respectability and accountability to the security function.
- Article by Hemamalini Venkatraman & Shreya Biswas