In the world of employment we are currently experiencing what has been dubbed “The Great Resignation” with staff moving between employers in greater numbers and many companies having difficulties in recruiting and retaining talent, so how can an effective HR system help you to retain talent?

Communication

When staff are left in the dark, it is easy for them to become sceptical about what is going on in the company and to feel that they are not involved or included. If staff don’t feel that they know what is going on then that becomes a breeding ground for rumour, discontent and disconnection which all contribute heavily when it comes to someone deciding to leave their job. You can use your HR system to communicate with staff in various ways from banners, to scrolling messages so that key information is cascaded to everyone at the same time. Your system will also give you reminders of when birthdays and work anniversaries are coming up and using that information to recognise the team member is a great way of communicating and showing staff that they are valued.

Reviews/Appraisals

When staff regularly have the opportunity to sit down with their line manager and discuss their work, their aims and objectives and any future plans, a sense of engagement and involvement is built. Staff feel that they are being listened to and what they do on a daily basis actually matters and makes a difference to the organisation. Your HR system can schedule probation and other reviews and give you reminders when they are due, this is great for retention as cancelling or missing these meetings leaves an employee feeling like their manager doesn’t care about them and doesn’t have time for them. Your HR system will also store the review meeting notes and any plans that come out of the meeting so that both the manager and employee have easy access to what was said and what actions were agreed.

Culture

By using a HR system an organisation is showing that it has a proactive, forward thinking culture that has moved away from the traditional time consuming ways of recording things like holiday requests that use paper forms or difficult to navigate spreadsheets. Most employees want to work for an organisation that is progressive and by using a HR system that staff can access via laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile devices an organisation can show that it understands the modern ways in which people work and it is able to be flexible and meet their needs. Culture is hugely important given how much time we all spend at work and so anything that an organisation can do to create the right culture will boost retention.

Reporting

Having a range of staff related information available at your finger tips is a really useful tool for any organisation and by using that data in the right ways you can positively impact on retention. High staff absence rates can be an indication of a number of issues including poor engagement and retention problems and by effectively tracking absence your HR system plays a key part in this process. Using absence reports can give you an early indication of where things might be going wrong in certain teams and you can deal with issues at an early stage before they become overly damaging. You can also use your HR system’s reporting function to look at turnover rates, again with regular monitoring you can look for trends of leavers either in certain teams or across the organisation as a whole to understand where your leavers are and then with other interventions like stay or exit interviews you can gather further insight information as to why staff might be leaving.

Retain talent in your company and sign up to a free trial of our HR software today!