7 Easy Ways Leaders Can Create Organizations People Want to Stay At

The days of someone graduating from college in their early 20’s, getting a job with a company and working there until they are 65 may be behind us. That doesn’t mean successful organizations don’t foster long term relationships with their team members.

Employees, especially in certain fields, may wish to stay at one organization for a certain period of time, then move on for new challenges and new growth opportunities. As an organizational leader, you’ll benefit from people moving in and out at particular intervals.

However, you want to make sure that people aren’t leaving prematurely, leaving you with major gaps in talent and leadership. The key is to create a welcoming environment that fosters teamwork and organically keeps individuals happy and satisfied in their career growth.

Here’s seven tips to encourage long term retention, boost morale and make your organization stand out as a great place to work.

Constructive Feedback

If employees don’t know what mistakes they made, what areas they can improve on and what tangible steps they can take towards improvement, they are set up for failure. Constructive feedback is essential.

Treat your employees like they are adults. You don’t need to dance around something that wasn’t done correctly, but make sure to provide feedback in a way that indicates exactly what wasn’t right and how to do it right next time.

For more difficult issues like habitual lateness or missing deadlines, don’t let your personal annoyance make the problem worse. Respectfully find out if everything is okay, and if there’s additional support they need to succeed.

Regular Promotion Opportunities and Reviews

Asking for promotions is difficult for most employees. They may not be aware of the internal workings and staffing needs of your company. It’s essential for you to regularly evaluate all your employees and promote when the time is right.

Career growth is so important to employees so they want to know they’ll be challenged and rewarded for learning and taking risks. Build trust by performing regular reviews and discussing their upward trajectory. If something is holding them back, find out if they need additional training and opportunities to build skills.

Make sure that employee reviews are conducted regularly and on time. It’s very frustrating for employees to wait, or be uncertain when they will take place. They’ll want to know how they are doing, how they can improve and if they are on track for promotion and raises. Make a calendar for reviews and stick to it.

Provide a desirable workplace

Work is important to people’s sense of self-satisfaction and pride. It becomes part of their identity. It’s essential to foster that by making sure your workplace is clean, uncluttered and organized.

Prior to the pandemic, many employers were exploring new and highly collaborative workspaces. These may or may not be right for every organization. Strike the right balance for your team members between collaboration and openness, and the ability to have peace, quiet and a distraction free environment for focusing. Not everyone thrives in a large open room with no divisions.

Many employers use art as a way to create a stimulating and positive environment. Plants and flowers may have a calming and pleasing impact. Furniture choices and ergonomics have an important impact on the well-being of your employees.

Remember you aren’t trying to create a spa or an at-home experience, but by soliciting input and making observations, you should be able to help create an inviting and productive space.

Encourage Out of the Box Thinking

Employees are on the ground looking at problems and finding innovative solutions that might be unconventional. Instead of sticking to rigid dogma, encourage out of the box, creative problem solving.

Make sure that deadlines are met and work is performed at a satisfactory level. Outside of that, why not put the ingenuity of the human mind to work? Some of those most exciting innovations and new methods of production and manufacture were born out of necessity, accident or just trying something new.

By allowing team members to experiment and try new things, you’ll be demonstrating that you trust them, and value their participation in meeting your mission goals.

Have a mentorship program

Mentoring programs have been shown to reduce turnover and improve employee morale. They provide a powerful way to bring new team members into the fold of your organizational culture, and develop long lasting relationships between colleagues.

Mentoring provides a sense of “giving back” to mentors, and allows them to play an important role in the success of your organization. Mentoring programs are easy to start, so if you don’t have one, you’ll want to institute one as soon as possible.

Attractive Benefits

Today’s employees are looking more carefully than ever at the selection of benefits your organization provides. It can be a highly competitive market and some may be willing to even forgo higher pay for better medical, dental, vision or other benefits.

Hiring top notch human resources experts can pay huge dividends in helping to select the highest value benefits available. The laws and benefits selections can be complex, so having a knowledgeable person on your side can make a huge difference.

Employees will feel well taken care of knowing they may have access to legal assistance; disability and life insurance; preventative care; telehealth; addiction and recovery support and more. Having charitable matching and community service can also be seen as a benefit, and shows that your company cares about more than just the bottom line.

Careful Hiring

You and your hiring team have the best sense of who will be the best fit for your organization. Of course, it’s not possible to predict the future or know exactly how every hire will turn out. However, you want to make sure that any new hires have the potential to succeed. They’ll need to have a personality that can adapt, get along with others and be an asset.

Hiring a candidate that isn’t a good fit from the start costs you time and money. Identifying those people who will become assets to your organization is a key skill that you must develop.