With Australian unemployment at 4.5% and international borders closed to new workers, the supply of talent to help grow a business is very limited. But the benefits of employee retention go beyond just keeping an employee working for your business. 

Here are the top five reasons why businesses of all sizes should focus on employee retention to build a competitive and productive team.

1. Skilled and knowledgeable workforce

When someone leaves your business, you lose the specialised training, knowledge and experience they built while working for you. This has to be built again from the ground up with their replacement when you could be developing an existing employee to enhance their skillset further. Long-serving employees know your business as well as you do. This can also make filling new positions easier when promoting internally rather than bringing in outsiders who may not be the right fit.

2. Improve productivity

Losing a vital employee can harm your productivity, whether it takes time to fill the position or time for their replacement to get up to speed. This could mean slowing your growth or other staff having to fill in, taking their attention away from their own tasks. Retained employees will know your systems and processes and how to use them efficiently, while newcomers may have a slow learning curve.

3. Save on hiring and training costs

As well as losing time and productivity, finding and training new team members can be expensive, especially if it's a regular occurrence. From the cost of recruiters and training programs to any bonuses you offer for signing on, you can lose any savings you might have made on a new employee's starting salary. Giving loyal and productive team members pay rises instead can be well worth the investment.

4. Improved loyalty and culture

When you make the effort to retain employees, you're showing your staff that they are valued. Employees who invest more time in a business are more likely to be loyal and to care about your company success. When you can keep a team together for longer, this can also improve morale and job satisfaction, as well as make for efficient collaborations when they know how each other works.

5. Improve your brand's reputation

Employee retention can have benefits outside your business. If you deal with customers, clients or partners, seeing the same friendly faces every time can help to nurture relationships. A low staff turnover rate reflects well on your business, as it shows that your workforce is satisfied. This can boost your reputation and help you to attract the best talent if you do need to fill any roles in the future.

Employee reward and engagement programs

Having an automated software solution that engages with your employees and fosters company loyalty is a cost-effective way businesses can retain talent and materialise the benefits of long employee tenure. 

Enter My Rewards International who have built a customised, white-labelled software solution to provide loyalty, reward and engagement programs for businesses. These programs facilitate the foundation of meaningful relationships with their employees, members and customers.

They now serve more than 4.6 million members with discounts and special offers from a network of over 4,500 suppliers. These services are delivered through a self-managed cloud-based ecommerce platform.

My Rewards is seeking admission onto the ASX in October 2021 through an IPO. For more information on how to participate in the IPO and become a shareholder of My Rewards, subscribe to the My Rewards Chairman’s List. 

To keep up to date with their news and progress, and for more information about loyalty and reward programs as a whole, subscribe to the My Rewards International Limited Chairman's List.