What Are the Best Employee Retention Tools?

Most com­pa­nies have ​“max­i­miz­ing employ­ee reten­tion” at the top of their long-term orga­ni­za­tion­al strate­gies and pri­or­i­ties. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, too many of those com­pa­nies view employ­ee reten­tion as just num­bers and fig­ures on a spread­sheet, and they’re miss­ing the point.

The key to employ­ee reten­tion isn’t about ana­lyt­ics and quick, short-term fix­es. It’s about cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive atmos­phere where employ­ees have room to grow and encour­age­ment to focus on their own well-being. It’s about cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth and sus­tain­able happiness.

When orga­ni­za­tions think about reten­tion, they must shift their focus from bot­tom lines and prof­it mar­gins to improv­ing the qual­i­ty of life for their people.

6 Employee Retention Tools to Increase Employee Well-Being

Here are six employ­ee reten­tion tools that orga­ni­za­tions should use to put their peo­ple first. From improv­ing inter-com­pa­ny com­mu­ni­ca­tion to inter­ac­tive well­ness ini­tia­tives, these are per­fect addi­tions to every employ­er’s tool belt.

1. Collaboration Tools

Today’s employ­ee wants to be a mem­ber of a close-knit team, where com­mu­ni­ca­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and even friend­ships are encour­aged. The best orga­ni­za­tions in the world don’t build a work­force; they cre­ate a fam­i­ly. That’s why tools that enable inter-com­pa­ny com­mu­ni­ca­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion and team­work are so essen­tial. A cou­ple of pop­u­lar exam­ples of col­lab­o­ra­tion soft­ware solu­tions are Slack and Google Workspaces.

Slack is a plat­form that encour­ages com­mu­ni­ca­tion, mak­ing it eas­i­er for team mem­bers to work togeth­er. They boast that they make it ​“down­right pleas­ant to work togeth­er.” Whether the com­pa­ny is remote or every­one’s locat­ed in the same room, Slack is an incred­i­ble tool to pro­mote easy and fun com­mu­ni­ca­tion between depart­ments, teams, and co-workers.

For­mer­ly known as G‑Suite, Google Work­spaces is anoth­er ful­ly-inte­grat­ed plat­form that stream­lines com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. Their full suite of ser­vices includes Gmail, Chat, Google Dri­ve, Docs and more, all fea­tures that enable com­pa­nies to cre­ate a tru­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive and dynam­ic team environment.

2. Employee Experience

Break­ing away from soft­ware for a moment, it’s wise to focus on oth­er tools that impact a per­son­’s well-being. There are spe­cif­ic tools that com­pa­nies can uti­lize that make work eas­i­er, less tedious and more comfortable.

Com­pa­nies should invest in their employ­ee’s every­day well-being with things like ergonom­ic office chairs to help with pos­ture and back pain, upgrad­ed tech­nol­o­gy, like noise-can­cel­ing head­phones, and faster com­put­ers to decrease frus­tra­tion and increase focus.

There are also plen­ty of tools on the soft­ware side of things. For instance, there’s no rea­son to force an employ­ee to spend hours work­ing on an Excel spread­sheet if an auto­mat­ed pro­gram can do it for them.

As stat­ed in Inc, expect­ing employ­ees to be con­stant­ly busy and assign­ing them tedious work to fill their time can be the death of an orga­ni­za­tion. No employ­ee should have to run them­selves ragged to please their employer.

3. Surveys

Of course, many orga­ni­za­tions aren’t sure which tools will have the most sig­nif­i­cant impact on their employ­ees’ well-being. That’s fine. The mod­ern team is dynam­ic and flu­id, and no two team mem­bers want the same thing.

If a com­pa­ny finds itself look­ing for solu­tions, it should con­sid­er using one of the employ­er-employ­ee hand­book’s old­est and most trust­ed tools.

Sur­veys, espe­cial­ly anony­mous sur­veys, allow employ­ees to be open and hon­est. Employ­ees have a voice, so employ­ers should encour­age them to use it.

4. Career Development and Education

There is noth­ing as crit­i­cal to an employ­ee’s job sat­is­fac­tion as the oppor­tu­ni­ty for career devel­op­ment and growth with­in an orga­ni­za­tion. No one wants to be stuck or trapped in the same posi­tion for years or decades at a time. That’s why orga­ni­za­tions that aim to serve their employ­ees’ best inter­ests will offer con­tin­u­ous career devel­op­ment, train­ing and education.

There are many tools for edu­ca­tion and career devel­op­ment, and Cours­era and Udac­i­ty are two of the most pop­u­lar online edu­ca­tion platforms.

Cours­era offers inter­me­di­ate to expert-lev­el edu­ca­tion­al cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties, com­pa­nies and experts in their respec­tive fields. With online learn­ing capa­bil­i­ties and flex­i­ble sched­ules, it’s an opti­mal choice for any employ­ee inter­est­ed in pur­su­ing high­er education.

A sim­i­lar plat­form, Udac­i­ty, offers employ­ers and team mem­bers alike the oppor­tu­ni­ty to opti­mize, enhance and increase their skill sets. Their mis­sion is to help com­pa­nies depri­or­i­tize recruit­ing and repri­or­i­tize their cur­rent team.

5. Wellness Initiatives

At the core of every incred­i­ble com­pa­ny is a team of hard-work­ing, healthy and hap­py employ­ees. When an orga­ni­za­tion pri­or­i­tizes hap­pi­ness, health and well­ness, they can see almost imme­di­ate boosts in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, morale and employ­ee retention.

Of course, it’s not enough to just give every­one a gym mem­ber­ship and urge them to lose weight. In fact, that’s a ter­ri­ble idea.

Well­ness ini­tia­tives should be focused on emo­tion­al, men­tal and phys­i­cal health, and no pro­gram should be cre­at­ed with­out con­sid­er­ing the var­i­ous lifestyles and strug­gles that mod­ern employ­ees must face. For­tu­nate­ly, there are many tools, pro­grams and ideas that serve this purpose.

• Hire a reg­is­tered dieti­cian who can work with employ­ees, one-on-one, to imple­ment healthy and nutri­tious diets.
• Take cook­ing class­es togeth­er so that every­one can learn healthy cook­ing tech­niques. This option also dou­bles as a team-build­ing event.
• Offer com­pre­hen­sive health­care ser­vices. Do not under­es­ti­mate the neces­si­ty for high-qual­i­ty healthcare.
• Pro­mote vaca­tion time and per­son­al days. It’s an essen­tial part of emo­tion­al, men­tal and phys­i­cal well­ness for employ­ees to take a break, get out of the office and focus on themselves.
• Encour­age employ­ees to seek help. Too often, peo­ple with men­tal or phys­i­cal ill­ness­es are forced to suf­fer alone. Cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment that encour­ages employ­ees to reach out when they need help is a per­fect way for orga­ni­za­tions to pri­or­i­tize the well-being of their teams.
• Of course, what’s impor­tant to some isn’t always essen­tial to every­one. So, whichev­er well­ness ini­tia­tives a com­pa­ny choos­es should be 100% optional.

6. Customizable, Lifestyle Benefits Platform

If no two employ­ees are the same, why do so many orga­ni­za­tions insist on a one-size-fits-all approach to employ­ee ben­e­fits? It does­n’t make sense.

One of the best ways to improve a person’s hap­pi­ness and well-being is to give them a choice. That’s why Fringe’s cus­tomiz­able lifestyle ben­e­fits plat­form is the per­fect addi­tion to any orga­ni­za­tion hop­ing to increase employ­ee retention.

A per­son­al­ized ben­e­fits pro­gram puts the pow­er back in the hands of the peo­ple who need it most – the employ­ees. They know more than any­one which options will have the most pos­i­tive impact on their lives. So, employ­ers should offer them the chance to cus­tomize their ben­e­fits to best fit their lifestyle.

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