Despite the current economic downturn, organizations are facing a worldwide skilled labor crisis. Â
Linkedin dataOpens a new window shows a worldwide turnover rate of 10.9% with the tech industry showing the most volatility at 13.2% turnover rate. For every skilled employee who leaves a company, it costs 2.5x the employee’s salary to fill the vacant position left behind.Â
Across the board, hiring managers are finding it difficult to hire IT pros with the right skill-set needed to implement emerging technologies. If you are one of the many IT managers looking to retain your headcount in the next year, consider these top strategies to ensure your best IT pros don’t leave:
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1. Offer great compensation packages
Your most talented workers know what their skills are worth. Be ready to offer competitive compensation and benefits to your most talented employees if you want to retain them. The Society for Human Resources Management reports Opens a new window that competitive pay and great benefits are huge factors that affect employee satisfaction.
Caution: Employees must have the necessary tools to do their job well. Make sure your network is designed for high availability and high performance. Â
2. Recognize, reward, and engage
While a great compensation package may get talented workers in the door, it will not keep them from leaving. By paying more, you may have successfully brought over skilled employees from your competitors in the past, but your competitors are now out to do the same.Â
To keep skilled workers from fleeing to a competitor, give raises that recognize your employees’ accomplishments and achievements. Frequently recognize and thank them for a job well done. Adding monetary rewards, bonuses, and gifts to the thank you is even better.Â
Make sure your key players are valued and know what is going on in the business.
Caution: Employees who believe that their managers actually care about what they have to say are far more likely to remain longer. This will be more true in decentralized work environments where employees need a platform to speak their minds freely, solicit ideas in an environment and get constructive feedback — all factors that contribute to employee retention.
3. Create multiple career path opportunities within the company
For highly skilled people, career opportunities are just as significant as the money they earn. A study by LinkageOpens a new window , Inc., found more than 40% of the respondents would consider leaving their present employer for another job with the same benefits if that job provided better career opportunities and greater challenges. For these employees, a job that offers promotional opportunities is a job worth working for.Â
Employee resource groups or talent share opportunities across departments can ensure employees don’t feel dead-ended in one specific role or job function. In short, every position should come with an individual development plan.
Caution: If you don’t offer employees a clear path for career advancement and/or career development opportunities, you are potentially positioning yourself to lose your best talent to the competition. Â
Learn More: Tech Talent: The Benefits of Upskilling and Reskilling in a Post-COVID WorldÂ
4. Help reduce employee stress
Employers who can connect their workers to a sense of purpose allow them to emerge stronger. But make sure employees know what you expect from them. Constantly changing expectations creates undue stress. Provide a specific framework within which they clearly know what is expected.
One of the key aspects of a retention strategy is that managers should be able to give back to their employees some sense of control, for example, by offering flexible hours to parents faced with homeschooling. Using digital workplace well-being apps, employers can help individuals focus on their social well-being and other health goals. For example, allowing teams to set shared well-being goals, such as going for a daily walk, can help improve social as well as physical health.
Caution: Don’t overlook the psychological impact work may be having on employees, or fail to put measures in place to help staff cope. Managers need to keep checking in with people to support those struggling with loneliness, anxiety, or even domestic violence. Employee Assistance Program services offering free counseling sessions and kind and empathetic managers must be combined with directing those exhibiting signs of distress to the right resources.
5. Provide upskilling opportunities
According to go2HROpens a new window , 40% of employees with poor training leave the company within the first year. Training programs increase employee productivity and can also alleviate employees’ low morale experienced during a recession when they worry most about job security. Not only will employees learn important skills to perform their jobs at a higher level, but this also results in a more engaged workforce. Â
The first step to upskilling is to identify what skills your employees are actually looking to learn and what they are lacking. Also, keep an eye on where the industry will be heading in the future to determine what skills will be required. Check with employees on what learning methods would work for them, what would help improve their team performance, and what their likes and dislikes are regarding upskilling programs. Then, make learning and worker development a cultural norm.Â
Caution: In slow economic times, training programs are often the first to be cut. But while reducing training and development programs during economic recessions may make financial sense, training is important for long-term success. Thus, economic slumps present an opportunity to directly connect training and development programs with an organization’s strategic plan.  Â
6. Allow employees to work on different projects
Another way to have employees become more engaged is through formal mentoring relationships and cross-functional projects that can promote talent development at all levels. For example, one day a week, let all employees rotate jobs for one hour.Â
Get your senior leaders to become actively involved in measuring the company’s current level of talent and skills and identify employees with high potential. Using this knowledge, create mentorship opportunities and cross-pollinate project teams to drive maximum engagement and productivity gains.Â
Caution: At the same time, it is important to promote more in-depth understanding and openness within intergenerational groups to smooth the generation gaps. Also, have older managers trained in coaching and feedback to help meet the younger generations’ work goals.
7. Foster a transparent workplace
Employees are likely to remain with organizations which have an open and transparent culture. Transparency means continually communicating with your workforce to maintain employee confidence. Transparency means more frequent performance management reviews, so employees are not judged based on a single review at the end of the year.Â
Being honest with your employees lowers anxiety levels and increases ownership and trust in your organization’s vision. This is important in the event of bad news — for instance, if things take a turn for the worse, nobody should be blindsided. Perhaps management may feel that keeping information from their employees will eliminate rumors and speculation. Rather, updating your workforce on company performance and soliciting their ideas on how they can help control costs and eliminate waste will earn your employees’ trust and confidence.
Caution: Even if you know layoffs are on the horizon, refrain from giving this information to employees. No matter how you phrase or explain it, your best workers will immediately update their resumes. While you shouldn’t keep performance information about your company from them, think twice before saying anything that makes your workers feel they need to search for another job.
Learn More: Gen Z Lacks Trust in Tech Companies, Finds FleishmanHillard ReportÂ
8. Evaluate and plan past the downturn
It is important to periodically evaluate and measure your organization’s progress in meeting its employee retention goals. The evaluation process should include the measurement of attitudes, morale, turnover, and workforce engagement level. To aid in this process, Workforce Magazine suggests getting regular responses from employees through a feedback app that allows leaders to identify dissatisfied employees and be able to take immediate action to retain them.
Caution: Your highly skilled employees play a significant role in where your company is headed both now and when the immediate downturn comes to an end. Look closely at your current talent levels and determine how the skilled labor crisis could affect the business in the future. Who are your key employees? What skills will be required to sustain and grow your business? Identify your key risks and start planning!
Do you have any tips on retaining and upskilling IT staff? Comment below or let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!