How to keep your employees engaged throughout January

January has been identified as the most popular month to make a career move, with one in five making the choice to leave their job. January 31st is apparently the date that employers should be preparing for an influx of white envelopes on their desks.  The top reason cited by these leavers is that their pay is too low. Of course, it is not always possible to increase everyone’s wages, but there are things you can do encourage your employees to stick with you through 2018.

Incentivise

It’s not surprising that happy employees are more productive and more loyal. It is also unsurprising that a better attitude to work in general, coupled with fewer stress related absences, or January leavers, can result in a higher profit margin for your business.

Offering a scheme which recognises and rewards hard work is important when it comes to employee satisfaction, and rewards for long service will further incentivise employees to stay loyal. Additionally, retail vouchers and discounts are a great way to incentivise your employee’s, as they are applicable to everyone, even staff who may work remotely and not often encounter colleagues who can recognise their hard work day to day.

Invest in Wellbeing

A key area of wellbeing is physical health. While it’s not always possible to pay each employee’s gym memberships, or have a full on-site gym installed, it can be very cost effective for employers to incentivise exercise through salary sacrifice on items such as wearable fitness bands or other health tech which can also improve an employee’s physical wellbeing.

Another growing area is employee financial wellbeing. Unfortunately, in Britain today, a large proportion of the population are living from pay check to pay check. The Office of National Statistics suggests that 16.5 million people of working age have no savings at all. Now, as previously mentioned, it’s not always feasible for an employer to simply raise wages for all staff, but offering access to affordable loans, which allow for repayments over a longer period directly from salary, or providing staff with financial education can help reduce the effects of financial stress.

Hit both area’s at once and protect them against the financial strain of physical illness with access to  insurances such as a hospital plan. This allows them to safe guard themselves if they do fall sick and are unable to work, and can help lower their stress levels.

Nowadays stress is an unavoidable consequence of life, and with the post-Christmas financial hangover, January is one of the most stressful months of the year. For those already suffering from mental health conditions, January can hit particularly hard. More than one in four people are likely to be suffering from a mental health condition in any one year, and one in six of those is likely to be a worker (Deloitte, 2017). With over 31 million people in work in the UK, this means around five million employees could be suffering from mental health issues each year.

Why not take a proactive, and preventative, approach to your employees’ mental health by offering private counselling or therapy sessions that your employees can access themselves? Mental health shouldn’t have to be hidden, but for those more private individuals, the option to seek help from an Employee Assistance Programme, without involving anyone in the workplace would be invaluable.

Increase Involvement

The National Bureau of Economic Research has found that employee involvement has a strong positive impact on employee engagement, with those who participate in employee involvement having a far greater trust in their firms (NBER). In other words, by involving employees in company decisions, their engagement with the company will increase and they will be more likely to stay in their positions for longer. So why not implement feedback surveys, which allow employees to have their say on company procedures, and greater input into company decisions as a whole? However, it is important that employees see the company taking actions based upon their feedback!

Whilst there is no way of making sure your employees stay with you forever, a little bit of extra time, effort in these three areas is likely to leave you with a happier, healthier and more loyal workforce. So why not make one of your new years’ resolutions to increase employee engagement within your business?

Find out how Personal Group can help you do just that, speak to one of our experts or email letschat@personalgroup.com.