It costs more than $4,129 on average to hire and onboard a new employee, according to a recent report by the Society for Human Resource Management. And that’s just the cost of recruiting—it doesn’t include expenses in the form of management time and training resources needed to bring a new employee up to speed.
To get started on your talent retention planning, consider doing some research by collecting information on employee engagement.
- Do managers have a good sense of employee engagement from the annual review process or some other structured communication with employees?
- Has your organization recently surveyed employees? A short and simple survey can provide great snapshots about employee engagement—plus allow you to analyze and compare trends for different groups of employees. Annual surveys can provide you with trend data over time that is useful for retention efforts.
- Does your organization conduct stay interviews? Stay interviews can be quarterly, biannual or annual one-to-one meetings between an employee and a manager to talk about what motivates the employee, what makes them want to stay and what could make their work experience better. This is a great opportunity for a manager to build trust with employees—and learn specific ideas for more effectively developing each individual employee’s skills and strengthening employees’ commitment to your organization.
- Does your organization conduct exit interviews? These are typically done on or near the last day of a person’s employment. They can be more effective if the employee meets with a Human Resources representative or someone other than the employee’s direct supervisor. The key questions to ask are: why is the employee leaving and what does the employee think could be done to improve the workplace experience for other employees.
Here are some additional resources:
