With a historic 4.5 million workers willingly leaving their jobs in November 2021, there are more questions than ever about what’s driving the change and how employers can retain talent.
EmpowerPoints, an employee engagement platform provider, revealed answers to those questions from its artificial intelligence engine. The findings showed employers can improve employee retention by:
- Increasing engagement with a focused segment of workers
- Creating opportunities for employees to support one another
- Providing unfiltered customer feedback
“We know the reasons behind the Great Resignation are varied and complex,” explained Brandon Poe, CEO of EmpowerPoints. “But in a series of surprising revelations, some of the best solutions to increase employee retention are not the usual go-to answers that employers gravitate towards.”
Creating Momentum with a Small Percentage of Employees
EmpowerPoints discovered that the typical “boil the ocean” approach to revamping corporate culture isn’t always the right strategy. In fact, the data showed that increasing engagement with just 20% of the workforce caused other engagement factors to increase as well. Those small changes were enough to completely transform engagement within the entire organization and increase employee retention.
“Companies often feel the need to influence every employee to impact culture, but we found that’s not always necessary,” said Ruben Navarrete, Chief Innovation Officer at EmpowerPoints. “We’re not suggesting employers only focus on a small part of the employee base, but instead proposing they consider small steps that can massively pay off.”
Using AI to make informed decisions discourages attempts to make large-scale changes that are time-consuming and not necessarily as effective.
Creating Shared Meaningful Contributions
Insights also revealed a contradictory concept. If a company is struggling financially or employees are personally under pressure, employee engagement and retention increase, but only if the employer provides avenues for employees to support their co-workers. “Meaningful contribution” is a commonly overlooked catalyst that increases employee retention.
“Whether supporting co-workers through tough times or collectively taking a pay reduction to prevent layoffs, employees were far more engaged when they could contribute to solutions during challenging times,” explained Navarrete. “The message is to not shield employees from difficulties that the organization or employees face. Instead, create a ‘we’re in it together’ attitude by offering opportunities for employees to become part of the solution.”
Delivering Unfiltered Customer Feedback
The analysis also showed that employees are more motivated to improve when candid customer comments reach them.
In one situation, each time an employee received direct feedback from a customer, the employer was instructed to monetarily reward the employee – even when the feedback was negative. AI discovered this built significant loyalty between the employee and the employer, increasing retention and employee satisfaction.
“The lesson here is that employers shouldn’t protect employees from the truth,” said Poe. “Once you share that feedback, there are simple ways to incentivize employees and build deeper trust between the employer and employee that extends beyond monetary recognition.”
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