How To Retain Tech Talent At Your Startup And Reduce Employee Turnover
Retention of employees is important to the growth of a business, especially a startup, as it has numerous positive impacts on a startup’s brand identity and helps reduces the cost accrued from employee turnover.
Hiring tech talents is not easy, but retention of these talents in order not to lose them to other companies is extremely important because the success of a startup lies in the quality of its team, which is why as a startup, employee retention strategies must be put in place.
In this article, we fill you in on the various strategies you can take as a startup on how to retain tech talent at your startup.
What Is Employee Retention?
Employee retention can be defined as the strategies taken by a company to retain its employees and reduce employee turnover. Employee retention can be achieved through proper talent management strategies. Employee retention is geared towards the reduction of the number of people who leave a company during a certain period, voluntarily or involuntarily.
It is important to retain employees as they are valuable assets. You may have hired the best people for the job, but if they leave before you have made any significant impact, that is a big loss for the company.
Employers can prevent their employees from leaving by ensuring they are fulfilled in their careers. According to Gallup, More than half of workers who leave their positions willingly think that their boss or the organization could have prevented them from quitting their jobs if they had tried.
Retaining employees involves a lot of care and attention. It is not something that you can do in one day or one month. It is a continuous process that requires a lot of dedication and commitment from both the employees and the employer.
What Is Employee Turnover?
Turnover can be defined as the total number of employees who left a company within a given time period. Voluntary and involuntary employee turnover are both possible.
Voluntary employee turnover occurs when an employee quits a company voluntarily and for a variety of reasons. These reasons may include resignation, an internal transfer, a change in profession or career objectives, a desire to work for a new organization, or a stagnant work environment. For a startup, voluntary employee turnover is more costly than involuntary employee turnover.
Involuntary employee turnover is the opposite of voluntary employee turnover and occurs when an employee is forced to quit a company. Some of these situations include death, illness, retirement, relocation or a change in location, and dismissal by management.
How To Retain Tech Talent For Your Startup
As earlier stated, employee turnover has nothing but a negative impact on a company. As a company just starting out, it is important that you keep a strong and ideal brand identity which employee turnovers prevent. In this section, we fill you in on several tips on how to retain tech talent for your startup and reduce employee turnover.
Conduct A Survey Or Create A Feedback System
The first step in employee retention is ensuring your employees are happy and satisfied with the work they do for your company as well as their roles, activities, and policies of the company. This can be achieved by conducting a survey to understand your employees’ worries, concerns, and happiness of your employees.
You can also set up an anonymous feedback system to create a feedback system. This will inform you of their thoughts and perceptions of the company, as well as what can be improved and what should be eliminated.
Employees desire to remain at organizations where their opinions are valued, and their concerns are addressed. Since such employees are more likely to remain with your company, it is crucial that you implement a feedback system.
Create A Workspace That Prioritizes Employee Growth and Advancement
In recent times and surveys, it has been proven that most employees only want to stay in companies that offer them career advancement and have policies and practices in place to aid them in their growth.
As a result, although it can be extremely tempting for a startup to focus on other aspects of the business, it is important to invest in the growth of your employees because a significant portion of your business goals can only be achieved through your employees.
You can show your interest in their growth by creating training and providing them with the materials needed to succeed. You can also enroll them in coding bootcamps like App Academy, Thinkful, and Flatiron School.
Create An Excellent Reward and Appreciation System
Appreciation and reward for good work build motivation and desire to perform better in employees. If you wish to retain your employees that cut across various tech careers, you must be able to show appreciation and reward them appropriately for their good performance.
According to Quantum Workplace, 27 percent of employees left their jobs because they felt underappreciated and undervalued. As a startup, it can get easy to be carried away by the bigger issues and things, but a workspace lacking recognition and appreciation will lead to dissatisfaction among employees and, in turn, lead to an increase in employee turnover.
Build An Inclusive Workspace
Diversity and inclusion in the tech industry is a huge problem, and this can create a feeling of isolation in these employees. Creating and maintaining an inclusive workspace allows for diversity and varying talents to succeed in your startup.
All employees in your startup should be treated equally, and all should be given a chance and an opportunity to grow regardless of sex, age, color, race, or religion. If you do not build an inclusive workspace, you risk losing a lot of your talents.
Ensure Work-life Balance and Flexibility
Many employees report that work-life balance is a prerequisite for working for any company or organization, and if you wish to retain your employees, ensure that there is work-life balance and flexibility.
Startups are known for their overwhelming workload, which can lead to burnout and employee job dissatisfaction which inadvertently leads to employee turnover; therefore, even though it is tempting to overwork your employees, ensure you grant them work flexibility and give them room for rest.
Should Startups Retain Tech Talent?
Yes, startups should retain tech talent because it can be costly to continuously lose employees. Unlike larger companies that have built their brand name and identity, startups have a lot of branding to do and cannot afford employee turnover and its negative image.
