As we come to the tail-end of the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses are continuing to face challenges in employee retention. At the beginning of the pandemic, essential workers retained their jobs but faced tough working conditions which has, in many cases, correlated with increased employee attrition and burnout. This has led to a trend of employees yearning for more flexible work and higher wages, and in some cases, leaving their jobs in search of a better work-life balance. Businesses are facing numerous challenges in today’s market. Previously, employees often felt a need to adapt to the workplace to suit the employer but a shift in market conditions has reversed past dynamics and now employers are feeling the need to improve what they are offering employees in order to retain and recruit quality staff.
Challenges
Employees Leaving the Workforce
Over the last couple of years, employees have been burning out at an increasing rate. Pandemic related layoffs put excessive burdens on workers who remain, and these burdens have worn out good employees to the point of them wanting to leave. Furthermore, due to the strain that the pandemic has put on people’s professional and personal lives, people are placing more of an emphasis on the importance of a work-life balance. More and more often, people are quitting their jobs sometimes moving to a new organization, but in some cases not even to returning to the workforce. This shift in priorities in today’s workforce has been dubbed The Great Resignation and it has left a huge gap in the labor market. There are numerous reasons why employees decide to quit their jobs, but the fact is that they are leaving, and organizations need to find a way to retain them. Some industries are seeing workers slowly return to the workforce, but these workers are not the same people who previously left and their expectations of their jobs have changed drastically.
Expectations of Flexibility
One of the positives to come out of the pandemic was a proof of concept that a flexible workplace can be successful, provided that it is implemented correctly. Many organizations in a plethora of sectors have proven that a well-defined flexible work place can thrive, whether this is allowing employees to work from home full- or part-time, or allowing for flexible hours. The emergence of tele-health appointments is a good example of innovation in this area. However, success sometimes comes with drawbacks and for businesses, this has increased the demand for flexibility from existing employees and potential new hires. As the working world explores new ways to do their jobs, employees continue to expect flexibility from their jobs. Providing employees with a flexible work environment is a huge driver of employee retention that not only benefits the employees, but also the employers. By expanding the option for remote working possibilities, employers have access to more qualified workers not necessarily in the immediate vicinity. Furthermore, the space requirements for physical locations are not as taxing if remote work is supported. Finding ways to provide flexibility for your employees can be a big retaining factor but defining what flexibility means for your organization will depend on what you are able to offer. Does flexibility mean working from home, more time off or flexible hours?
Increased Cost of Living
Urban and sub-urban settings are seeing an increased cost of living, and this continues to rise year by year. It is no longer affordable to live and work in the city, and thus workers are searching for different jobs, even in different sectors, that will provide them the income and work-life balance that will make living in their desired area feasible. Businesses continue to be challenged to keep up with this increase and it is now presenting them with a different problem. A shortage in the workforce has led to administrative staff being elevated into higher roles in the urban market, leaving a significant challenge to fill the role of lower paying administrative positions
Rising Minimum Wages
The rising minimum wage is putting an upward pressure on wage and salary expectations both from current workers and potential new hires. These increases in wage costs for businesses can put a huge strain on the bottom line, but the alternative is to lose qualified employees and candidates to other organizations who are willing and able to pay a higher wage. For businesses with already narrow margins, rising staff costs can greatly stress profitability and sometimes the overall viability of the business.
Shortage in Workforce
We are seeing an overall shortage in talent and workforce across all sectors. People are finding new ways to make ends meet and unlike before, workers are no longer quitting jobs to rejoin a similar organization. Sometimes they are leaving the sector completely to try something non-traditional, head back to school, or start their own business. This is leading to a decline in qualified applications for positions across the country. Over 20% of Canadian workers are currently working in remote jobs, which accounts for over 5 million people. According to Statistics Canada, 40% of Canadian jobs could feasibly be done from home. Finally, roughly 30% of traditionally employed Canadians expect to transition to self-employment over the next 3 years. All of these trends are leading to an overall shortage in the workforce across a variety of sectors.
The Importance of Retaining your Talent
As discussed above, there are fewer qualified candidates looking for positions. Organizations need to recognize and acknowledge that the cost to recruit, hire and train new staff far outweighs the costs necessary to retain your current staff. While the monetary value in doing this can be seen in your budget, there are also intangible values that need to be recognized as well.
Institutional Knowledge – Your current staff have worked for you and are thus familiar with how your organization is run, what works well, and what does not. This knowledge does not have a monetary value but is critical for the smooth operations of your business. Constantly recycling staff, especially if the departure is sudden and unplanned, leads to spending time and money on ideas that have already been tried before but did not work. A lack of institutional memory and knowledge can waste time repeating historical mistakes.
Understanding of Communication and Training Preferences – Along with institutional knowledge comes an understanding of the best ways to communicate and to train. Communication in a fast-paced business is integral to success, and employees that have worked through issues to help iron out the best practices are very important. Not only that, but they are in the best position to train staff to ensure that new hires are brought up to speed quickly and able to hit the ground running.
Existing Relationships with Patients and Stakeholders – Current staff will have existing relationships with your clients or patients and their families. It takes time to build these relationships and high staff turnover will have a damaging effect on lasting and valuable relationships between your employees and your patients. Furthermore, long serving employees will also develop relationships with vendors and stakeholders, both contributing to the smooth operations of your clinic.
Lower Training and Onboarding Fees – As mentioned, keeping existing staff versus hiring new staff greatly decreases your training and onboarding fees. The amount of time that it takes to get a new employee up to the speed of a veteran employee far outweighs any difference in salary between the two.
Staff Retention Considerations
Considering the challenging recruitment market conditions, as well as the advantages associated with retaining staff, it is important for employers of all sizes to proactively improve their retention strategies. There are four key elements to staff retention, and all need to be focused on to maintain an effective strategy to keep your staff happy. At Hive Solutions, we approach retention from four distinct angles as outlined below.
Workplace Culture
Workplace culture, a set of shared values, principles and behaviors, is cultivated by the organization leadership to guide their employees in their interactions and behaviors with each other and with external stakeholders. The relationships that your employees have at work, as well as the working environment you provide for them, are two very important elements of retaining staff. In 2021, more than 40% of employees were considering leaving their jobs, with toxic culture being one of the largest drivers of attrition. Working in an unsuitable environment quickly creates resentful and bitter staff who will start to look for other employment, while also not working their best for your clinic. It is important to pay attention to whether your staff seem happy coming to work, whether they get along with their coworkers and whether they feel that their roles and responsibilities are clear to them.
Throughout the pandemic, there has been a shifting trend towards focusing on wellness and work-life balance and this is an important element of the workplace culture. Businesses with negative work-life balance culture, that regularly overwork their employees will suffer from employee burnout, but those that take a softer approach and value their employees’ health, both physically and mentally, will have lower turnovers. Employees that feel valued in this way will also report a higher level of job satisfaction. Some tangible examples of making employees feel valued could include extra sick days, personal days, vacation days, staff retreats and employee satisfaction surveys. Finding non-traditional ways to reward employees for their hard work and commitment can go a long way to improving morale.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is an employee’s subjective perception of their role within their workplace. Employees want to see that their efforts matter and that they are making a difference. People want to be challenged in their work so they can feel accomplished, but it can’t be so challenging that they feel they can never succeed. When they do succeed, they usually want to be acknowledged for it. Whether your employees are fulfilled in their roles within your organization will go a long way in determining whether they want to stay or find different employment. If they feel respected and supported, they will continue to work hard. However, if they feel that their personal values are not aligning with the clinic, this is when their job satisfaction may decrease.
The role of the employee is not the only consideration in whether the employee is satisfied with their job. It is becoming increasingly important to the workforce to have their values aligned with their employers’. They want to feel as though they are making a useful contribution to their community environment. Generation Z and Millennial workers are among the most likely to part ways with an employer that does not align with their values, and in some cases would be willing to take a lower-paying job if it meant a more positive societal contribution.
The emergence of remote work is also an important factor that cannot be overlooked in both culture and job satisfaction. It has proven itself to be a viable option for many businesses and it comes with benefits for clinics as well. Firstly, it protects employees to focus on certain tasks more effectively. Secondly, if used correctly, it can help clinics optimize use of space and accommodate other providers, activities and staff. As more employers move towards this, those that aren’t are immediately removing themselves from consideration from qualified job-seekers who deem this as an important aspect of a potential job.
Development and Advancement
Employees want to learn and they want to develop. No one wants to stay in the same position for years on end without any growth potential. Human beings as a whole want to be challenged, and your employees are no different. Recognizing your employees for their skills and efforts and rewarding them with advancement opportunities will create a tangible way to retain your employees. Providing regular training and development will help them learn new skills, sharpen their current ones and understand that their employer is interested and invested in supporting their goals and career path.
Compensation
While compensation is still an important part of retaining employees, you can see that it is not the only way to tackle this issue. Compensation, as well as a benefits package, will help you keep your employees long-term. They need to feel that their salary is competitive in the current job environment, as well as fair remuneration for their efforts and skills. Balancing compensation with a comprehensive benefits package will make employment with your business more desirable as a whole. Getting creative and finding new benefits for employees (not just the standard medical coverage) can show them that you care about their well-being and respect their efforts.
As you can see, there are numerous factors for employee retention that you need to be aware of. Compensation, while the easiest to gauge against your competitors, is not the only contributing factor. There is a current trend of employees leaving jobs for other opportunities with the same wage, and this is because of the other three factors above (Culture, Job Satisfaction and Development/Advancement). Coming up with a strategy to manage all four categories will provide the most reasons for your employees to stay with the clinic, and remain focused and engaged long-term.
Communication with Staff
Communicating often and efficiently with your staff might seem like a given, but its importance is often overlooked. By communicating with your staff consistently and on an ongoing basis, you will be collecting essential data for the seamless running of your business while also making your employees feel heard, valued and respected. This will go a long way to increasing their job satisfaction while providing them an outlet to share their career goals and earn more developmental opportunities. By having regular and recurring performance reviews, your staff can share their goals, highlight skills they’d like to develop, share any current pain points related to their duties and seek clarification on their roles and responsibilities, should they need to. By delivering performance reviews with no association to raises, employers can use this as a way to learn what the staff find helpful and challenging which can be invaluable information and help improve overall operations. In addition to performance reviews, staff satisfaction surveys can also be helpful to measure what is working and what can be improved upon. These surveys will help you measure possible improvement areas, provide a method to track feedback from staff and ultimately better understand what your workplace offers your team and where it is lacking.
Moving Forward
The new job market is challenging, but it is challenging for everyone. Instead of focusing on the difficulties, it is important to shift your attention to understand that the landscape has changed. Adjusting your recruitment and retention strategy will be integral to the success of your business going forward. Understanding that your staff is your biggest asset will help you prioritize their satisfaction which will lead to happier and more productive employees. The most important part of any business is the people, and finding ways to keep them happy and engaged will ultimately benefit your clinic in the long run. The workforce is evolving quickly, and in order to remain competitive in the labor market that already has a shortage, the only way to keep up is to change priorities. The employers that are able to understand and respond to their workforce will be better placed to compete for talented workers and retain their current staff.
