11th March 2022

Retaining Employees, Your Company’s Most Important Asset

On the back of the global pandemic, there is no doubt 2021 created many challenges for employers and business owners, especially when it comes to your key asset – your employees. A motivated and engaged employee will help contribute to the success of a business – it is therefore essential you do everything possible to retain quality personnel.

Engagement is essential – making your employees feel valued and appreciated will help them feel empowered and encourage them to contribute to the success of the business. Clearly, this has been difficult with many of us working fully or partially from home over the last 18 months, but with many now returning to offices, this is the time to ensure that you are supporting your staff in another big adjustment into the ‘new norm’ of working life.

Did you know... The UK annual average employee turnover rate is roughly 15%, with drastic variation between industries.* How do you compare?
Monster UK, 2021

So, how do you recruit the best people and retain your employees? A pay increase is an obvious approach and clearly a favourable option for employees. However, as time passes the value becomes the new norm and such increases are often quickly forgotten.

Employees are showing increasingly more interest in their overall remuneration, including the value of additional employee benefits such as employer pension contributions, share schemes, healthcare provision and protection in the event of death or ill-health.

Do you communicate to your employees the total value of their remuneration package? This is likely to be significantly more than their base salary and can help reinforce to employees the true value of the investment made by the business into them.

Rewarding loyalty can also help retain staff. This can be in the form of monetary or gift awards, or increased annual leave after set periods of service. Simple and effective options could include a day’s annual leave on the employee’s birthday, or increased employer pension contributions/benefit provision linked to service.

Many business owners and HR professionals have already addressed the importance of the physical and mental wellbeing of employees, and the focus is now switching to financial wellbeing. Unsurprisingly post-pandemic, financial wellbeing has become pivotal in helping address employee wellbeing. This period of time has had a huge impact on the finances of the nation, and many of your employees will now require help to manage their finances more effectively.

At company level, you can support your employees’ financial well-being by ensuring your workplace pension scheme (most likely your highest benefit spend) is best suited to the needs of the company and your employees. If you have not already, you should look to maximise the tax-efficiency of salary exchange for your pension scheme, particularly ahead of the proposed National Insurance increases announced to help fund social care reforms.

In terms of direct support to employees, financial education group workshops and/or individual clinics can assist them in managing their finances more effectively and making
their pay stretch a little further each month. You may also want to consider offering staff access to high-quality independent advice on areas such as pension/long-term savings,
retirement planning and the importance of investments. Depending on their individual circumstances, a workplace default fund may not always be the best investment for some
of your employees.

So, how do you pull a retention and recruitment strategy together? The starting point is to ensure your employees understand and appreciate both the tangible and intangible benefits you currently offer. Over the years I have met many employees that are not aware of the benefits offered by their employer and, if this is the case, how can they possibly have any concept of their value?

Secondly, consider your budget and whether areas such as salary exchange can be adopted for your workplace pension scheme. This can create valuable employer National Insurance Contribution savings which can be used towards wider employee benefits.

Ultimately, providing additional support and benefits to your employees will undoubtedly help with staff retention and demonstrate to new candidates that you are a great employer to work for.

Get in touch with one of our specialist Corporate and Independent Financial Advisers who can help you tailor a reward strategy to meet your requirements and budget on 0117 450 1300.