Your staff are crucial to the success of your business. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to get your products out the door, or provide your services to customers. However, with one-third of new employees leaving their job within 6 months, staff retention is something that should concern us all.

Not only do you rely on your staff to ensure things run smoothly, but recruiting and training a replacement can be expensive and time-consuming. Having a high staff turnover can also impact morale amongst your remaining employees and you will lose valuable knowledge and experience.

These 8 tips are designed to help you create a workplace your employees won’t want to leave:

1. Hire the right people

Start by reviewing your hiring procedures and interview tactics, to ensure you are hiring the right people from the very start. Look beyond just their skills and experience. When you’re running a small business, you need reliable, dedicated employees who will be passionate about their job as well as your business.

2. Implement an onboarding process

When you’ve hired a new employee, the temptation is to just sit them down at their desk so they can get on with work. However, this isn’t the best of starts for them, so make sure you implement a proper onboarding process. Show new employees around, help them learn the ropes, introduce them to other members of staff, inspire them and encourage them to get involved. This will boost their confidence and give them a positive start to working at your business.

3. Engage employees

Make sure your employees feel engaged. This can help them to feel more connected with their role as well as the business. You could start by ensuring each employee understands how their role impacts the company as a whole. You could celebrate key wins as a team and involve staff in discussions around the future of the business, welcoming their ideas and feedback.

4. Offer benefits

As a small business, you may not be able to provide some of the big benefits that larger companies enjoy. But you can still make your company an appealing place to work. Simply providing free fruit in the kitchen, or offering flexibility in working hours can make a big difference to staff morale. Offer staff discounts on your own products and services, or you could even speak to other local businesses about setting up trading benefits with them. When your staff feel valued in this way, they are much more likely to be happier in their job and stay working with you.

5. Pay as well as you can afford to

It can be hard competing with larger companies where salaries are concerned, but it is worth bearing in mind that for an entry-level employee, it can cost between 30% and 50% of their annual salary to replace them. It can therefore often be better to invest that money in your existing staff, rather than losing them and having to spend out on recruitment.

6. Pay attention to all your employees

You can often find that your time is taken up with important business meetings, calls with clients, or with employees who need your help and support. However, does this leave your other staff members working away and feeling neglected or taken for granted? A simple hello, a couple of minutes here and there to check in or people, or giving acknowledgment of some good work can make a huge difference to morale and motivation.

7. Arrange regular review meetings

Make sure you set aside time for regular catch-up meetings and reviews. This gives you the opportunity to get to know your employees better, to understand what work they like doing, what they’re good at, what they don’t like doing and where they see their career headed in the next 5 years. This may seem like a lot of time out of your schedule, but you’ll be better prepared to ensure staff are happy in their job and therefore improve retention. For example, you may discover that an employee wants to be a manager one day. Instead of losing them to a competitor, you could get them more involved in the business, offer them more responsibilities, or set up a mentoring scheme.

8. Provide training

One thing that is sure to make your staff feel valued is investing in them. Training is a great way to do this (and can make them more efficient and proficient at their job). If you’re worried about staff gaining qualifications and then jumping ship, you can always ask them to sign an agreement, which states they must stay on for a set amount of time after completing their training. You may be able to get a discount on work-related courses from local providers, or there are numerous online learning sites out there too, enabling employees to fit training around their existing work commitments.