An employee with an annual salary of $75,000 just walked out the door. They may as well have taken a briefcase of cash with them.
Depending on whose calculation you follow, replacing talent can run from 70-200 percent of that employee’s annual salary, with the rate increasing as seniority and expertise escalate. That’s according to Love ’em or Lose ’em: Getting Good People to Stay, written by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans.
Recruiting, wading through resumes, interviewing, assessing, negotiating, training, waiting for productivity rates to increase, hoping you don’t lose key clients in the meantime–there’s not a particularly pleasant task in the bunch.
If you’ve got other things you’d rather be doing with your time, there are actually a few key areas you can focus on to improve employee retention. It’s not surprising that as the cost of healthcare increases, employees are paying more attention to the value of their benefits package. Based on responses from a MetLife Employee Benefits Survey, health benefits were ranked as the second most important factor impacting workplace loyalty and retention, outranked only by salary. Advancement opportunities and retirement benefits tied for the third most critical factor.
That’s probably not earth-shattering news to anyone, but it is a good reminder that benefits deserve careful consideration and expert planning advice to make sure your offerings hit the mark.
Different employees value different benefits. Single employees have little interest in lifetime orthodontia limits, but a lively discussion can ensue if you bring the topic up with parents of pre-teens. And prescription coverage sure becomes more relevant as we age. Do you know which benefits hold the most appeal for your own staff? Are renewal times preceded by education periods to ensure selections keep pace with life changes?
In the end, there may be many questions to ponder related to benefits, but there’s one simple truth: Benefits make people happy. Happy people stay. Do your employees have something to smile about?
