Retaining Employees without Monetary Incentives

15 May 2021
Recruitment and Retention

A company is only as good as its employees which means that hiring and retaining reliable, efficient and productive staff should be at the forefront of every business’ agenda.

Finding respectable and dependable staff is easier than it has ever been thanks to the internet, giving employers immediate access to an infinite pool of candidates.

The biggest challenge is keeping those new hires at your company, least of all because hiring a new member of your team could cost as much as £50,000. Poaching is one of the issues you need to contend with as competitors are able to sneakily tempt your employees via email, phone calls and social media correspondence, but offering your employees more money won’t always convince them to stay.

Wages and salaries used to be the main driving force for employees to stay at a company, but as time has gone on and companies have welcomed a new wave of millennials and Gen Z employees to their rosters, it has become apparent that money is no longer the be-all and end-all.

Money as a motivator

In decades gone by, people would stay at a job – even if they didn’t like it or get any sense of fulfilment from it – purely because it paid the bills, so to speak. As younger generations begin to enter the workplace, attitudes and motivators are shifting. Whilst pay is a deciding factor in a person taking a job, it isn’t the sole reason they will stay.

Salaries need to be competitive, as well as falling in line with national minimum and living wages, but once employment is secured, it is becoming increasingly more apparent that you can’t keep your employees at your firm by simply paying them more money and awarding them bonuses.

So, if money isn’t a motivator, how do you retain employees without money incentives?

Flexible working

A lot of the working population need to juggle personal commitments with working, especially those with caring and parental duties. In previous generations, one parent might stay at home full-time to look after children whilst the other would go to work. Nowadays, this isn’t as common as people are becoming more career-driven, meaning fewer are willing to give up their jobs and instead value flexibility as a top priority.

Companies that fail to afford their employees flexibility will more than likely find that their retention rates are lower than those that do, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted that it is possible to do almost every office-based job from home.

It is worth offering your employees a number of flexible working days on a structured basis - for example, five days every month, to boost retention. These could be days where they can work from home, or it could be that they can split their week up best for them, for example, swapping working on a weekday for working at the weekend instead. This will allow your employees to better manage their work-life balance and accommodate any unforeseen issues such as house maintenance and appointments.

Positive reinforcement

Another way you can help retain employees is to give them positive praise. When an employee receives positive comments on something they have worked hard on, it makes them feel more appreciated. Appreciated employees are proven to be more engaged, and with lack of engagement being one of the key driving forces behind employee turnover, keeping your staff interested in their job is essential. When employees are not engaged, they tend not to be motivated, meaning they do not care as much about their work output and the quality of the work they produce. This leads to poorer job performance, and in addition to low morale, this can have more serious implications for your business as a whole.

You can avoid this by simply providing your team with regular praise. This doesn’t mean you need to have lengthy conversations with each member of the team every day, but once a week, highlight the good things each employee has achieved and remind them that you value the work they’re doing. This will push them to perform better and keep them engaged. What’s more, giving positive feedback doesn’t cost a penny, but it can have a huge impact on staff retention rates.

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How to retain employees without monetary incentives

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A company is only as good as its employees which means that hiring and retaining reliable, efficient and productive staff should be at the forefront of every business’ agenda.

Money as a motivator

Flexible working

Positive reinforcement

How Paydata can help increase staff retention

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How to retain employees without monetary incentives

Blogs

A company is only as good as its employees which means that hiring and retaining reliable, efficient and productive staff should be at the forefront of every business’ agenda.

Money as a motivator

Flexible working

Positive reinforcement

How Paydata can help increase staff retention

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