Keeping a company’s employees happy, positive, and motivated is vital to any business’ success. The purpose of employee retention strategies are to decrease employee turnover rates. It is extremely costly to have to recruit and train new employee. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, “employee replacement costs can reach as high as 50 to 60 percent of an employee’s annual salary”. Companies attract top caliber candidates by offering competitive pay, benefits, employee recognition, employee assistance programs, etc. Some companies have gone above and beyond by implementing creative employee retention strategies. I’ve listed some below.
1. Mary Kay Ash recognize special occasions in your life. The owner of the cosmetics company personally signs every birthday card and gives employees free lunches or movie tickets for 2 on their birthdays. She gives little silver banks for births and a small, silver bowl for weddings. It makes employees feel like they have a personal connection with her!
2. Some companies recognize that employees can get sleepy at work. They have taken steps to install “nap rooms” for their employees to take a short siesta in. They have found that moods tend to be more positive and productivity increases after a short nap.
3. Wilton Conner Packaging Company have a complete laundry service on site for their employees. Employees drop off their laundry in the morning, and they’ll receive it at the end of the day freshly washed, dried, folded, and packaged, ready to take home. It is not surprising that this company only has a 0.5% turnover rate!
What are your thoughts on these strategies? Are they too over the top or would you like to see more companies reach out to their employees? We have to take into consideration the costs of these strategies and not all companies can afford it, but it would be interesting to see what other unique benefits companies offer their employees in the near future.