So, you managed to catch a few dependable, productive people under your employ, but this is not the time to rest! Valuable, skilled people are greedily sought after by every company big and small and there’s only so much money you can throw at someone to stay until you find out that you’re broke and they leave anyway. So what else can you do to ensure your high-quality employees don’t turn their back on your endeavor? Well, Billdu’s got some good advice for you.

Let’s start by reviewing the top reasons for employees to leave or to consider leaving their current jobs:

• Little or no training/coaching and feedback

• Poor opportunities for growth and advancement

• Management doesn’t recognize the true value of their employees

• Stress from overworking or from being unable to balance personal and professional lives.

• No deeper connection or trust towards the project and its leader/s

Now let’s look at what you can do to prevent the above from happening:

Help you employees grow and widen their horizons

Offer training programs, language or IT courses or night schools for various areas to widen the skill-set of your employees and give them a sense of personal growth thanks to YOUR company. If you don’t have the means to set up such training yourself, offer to refund your employees if they participate in selected courses elsewhere.

Hire from within first

Looking to fill a new position? Try to look within your company for potential candidates first. There’s a high probability that you’ll find someone who can take on an additional role and advance in the company ladder – this will keep him from searching for better positions elsewhere. If you don’t find anyone suitable for the opening, you can still go through the traditional hiring process from outside. Even if you just show your employees that you’re thinking about them first, when filling a new position, will make them appreciate you as a leader and the company as a place where they should definitely stay.

Organize contests and set up reward systems

Everybody likes a good contest, so why not organize regular contests, either in the traditional sense – like bingo or a raffle, or contests involving employee metrics. The rewards for such contests can vary depending on your budget and other options, ranging from a company-paid dinner or a paid day off to a full-on vacation for the top performer.

Open communication is everything

Gone are the days where employees had to keep their mouth shut and cover behind their desk, each time some higher-up walked by. Implement an open door policy and encourage your employees to speak out if they have any concerns regarding the company or better yet – improvement suggestions. They shouldn’t feel afraid to come to their management when they have something to discuss. This way, you can see signs for when an employee contemplates changing jobs, and hopefully, solve the issue before they decide to leave for good.

Conduct “stay interviews”

Exit interviews are common among larger companies, but why stop there? You can get a lot of valuable information from employees that have stayed with you for a considerable amount of time. Ask them WHY the remained at your company for all that time, what their main motivation is and if they would change anything if they could. Thanks to a simple 20-30 min. discussion, you can know exactly on which points of your employee management you should focus, which processes to retain and which to throw out and do better.

Now that you know what is expected of you as a leader and an employer, get out there and nail those employees down with the tips we just shared. Feel free to share the advice you yourselves might have on the topic of employee retention in the comments below.