The latest information that has been coming in states that employer’s awareness of people tops the list of the things that keeps people at their jobs.
These issues involve an awareness of diversity issues and providing job security for good work. There is also a strong need for employers to recognize the need to balance work and family responsibilities as well. As well employees are more apt to stay with companies that offer flexible working arrangements as well.
All these factors are at least part of the things that affect staff retention and absenteeism in the new business model. Of course there were other factors that prospective employees held in esteem and these included thing such as the work environment.
There has been a definite shift away form the old model where wages and benefits were the governing factors and the new model employee looks for other things such as the ability of management to clearly communicate with them on a variety of issues such as the business goals of the employer and the overall management performance.
Since staff retention also means by proxy that there is usually a corresponding drop in absenteeism, the people who have studied such matter in depth have come up with several items that are crucial to keeping employees happy.
At the top of this list are flexible work hours so that workers will be able to take time out to look after children and elderly parents. As well, most employees feel that they would like to have several paid sabbaticals on top of their paid vacations and more and better training that fits in line with the career goals of the employee.
It also appears that the new breed of employee is conscientious as well as they require that they get quarterly reviews rather than annual ones so that they might better themselves and be able to move up more often.
It’s important to know what they employees that you’ve already got working for you want and need as well and to that end employee surveys can provide useful in determining how to balance the staff retention and absenteeism ratio. These surveys often help to uncover the problem areas that need to be addressed before it’s too late and the issues involved have affected work performance causing irreparable damage.
One of the underlying principles here is that management cannot assume that they know what the employees want and to that end to get the most of the staff they’ve got and the people that they want to hire in the future, companies will need to look into the their staff retention and absenteeism models so that they can get the most from their employees.
Richard Reid of
Pinnacle Proactive, Specialists in the
Employee
Assistance Program,
Stress Management,
Staff Retention & Absenteeism. Take a Proactive Approach in Growing Your
Organisation