What’s the secret to a happy workplace? Human Resource Strategist, Therese Ravell of Impact HR, says recruiting and retaining the right people is critical to business success. But it’s not a one-size fits all situation when it comes to keeping employees happy – every company culture is unique.

However, there are some simple, low-cost ways to retain your staff. “The wonderful thing about improving employee relations and retention is it doesn’t have to be hard or cost the Earth,” she says.

The following eight initiatives have worked for Ravell’s clients.

1. Mission, Vision and Values

Be clear on the mission, vision and values of your business. When you can talk about them clearly, your passion becomes infectious and creates loyal, dedicated team members.

 

2. Recognition

Make sure you regularly recognise members of your team who demonstrate the values of your company. When you do this, try and do it in front of other team members so they will be motivated to act in the same way.

 

3. Celebrate Success

It’s important to celebrate successes in your business – even the little ones – collectively. Celebrate with a coffee or a drink on a daily or weekly basis. Your team will feel appreciated and will work towards achieving bigger goals.

 

4. Meetings

Make time for one-on-one sessions or small team meetings. If you are already conducting one-on-ones, really take advantage of the coaching and mentoring opportunity this gives you.

 

5. Build Relationships

Where possible create opportunities for your team to build relationships with each other. It doesn’t have to be big or complex. Simple but effective examples include celebrating birthdays or start dates, hot-cross buns at Easter or maybe moon cakes for Chinese New Year. Be creative and find things that work for your team.

 

6. Give Honest Feedback

No one is perfect so provide feedback in a way that is respectful but helps your employees understand what they are doing well and what needs to improve.

 

7. Make it Personal

Make sure you do the little personal things: say good morning to people, ask how people are going, recognise birthdays and dates when people joined the team. Make sure they know you realise they are more than a robot.

 

8. Professional Development

Use your contacts to help connect your team to others wherever possible. Sometimes you’ll see that these connections will professionally benefit the business as well. Occasionally it will be just a personal benefit for the team member. When you are genuine about helping others work towards their career and personal objectives, you will find they are loyal and more willing to collaborate.

 

Ravell says if you get employee relations right you can spend more time on the business and less time recruiting staff. “Unless of course your employee relations strategies lead to greater customer satisfaction and they spend more as a result. Then you’ll need to grow your business to keep up with demand. In that case, you will be recruiting for positive reasons!”

 

Study Employee and Industrial Relations

A company’s greatest asset is its staff. The role of employee and industrial relations is to advise employees and employers on how to work together effectively.

The Certificate of Employee and Industrial Relations is an online professional development program that will provide you with the skills and knowledge required to manage employee and industrial relations matters in an organisation.

Throughout the course you will use a range of specialised technical and managerial techniques to plan, carry out and evaluate your own work and/or the work of a team.

This professional development course will take you through planning and policy development for employee relations as well as negotiation, conflict management, dispute resolution and managing industrial relations.

You will also learn how to respond to industrial conflict and grievances, with a well-established, sound theoretical knowledge base in human resources management and industrial relations.