Retain
Retention is the most important and cost effective strategy your business can use to combat skills and labour supply shortages.
Holding on to your staff, particularly older workers means, you retain experience, corporate knowledge, productivity and diversity in the workplace.
For every employee you retain you save the considerable expense and inconvenience that comes from recruiting a new employee.
Increase productivity, morale and loyalty among employees by creating an environment where work and personal responsibilities can be balanced.
These tools will give you some ideas and strategies to retain staff including flexible work practices and flexible retirement options.
Use the following checklist to determine areas you may need to pay closer attention to in your business to improve retention rates.
- Experience Pays checklist (PDF, 57 KB)
A checklist that will help you identify ways to help you keep your staff
Promote the values of experience and age in your organisation.
- Ensure that promotion and career progression are equally available for mature-age workers.
- Acknowledge and value experience and life skills in the workplace.
Your organisational culture can impact dramatically on retention rates. The following provides an introduction to understanding and assessing the organisational culture of your workplace.
- Understanding and assessing the culture of your business (PDF, 49 KB)
How to assess the culture of your business
Flexible retirement and work options
Create flexible working arrangements for mature-age employees.
- Consider the potential for employees to work part-time or from home when possible. Phase staff into retirement with flexible negotiations such as days in lieu, job share, seasonal work, contract employment and extended leave options.
- Create a pool of experienced people who have retired but are willing to work during peak periods, on special projects, replace people on leave or coach new managers.
- Flexible retirement options (PDF, 85 KB)
A number of hints and tips to help employees with flexible retirement and work options.
Flexible work options:
- Phased retirement (PDF, 45 KB)
- Part-time work (PDF, 56 KB)
- Job sharing (PDF, 36 KB)
- Part-year work and special leave without pay (PDF, 29 KB)
- Voluntarily working at a lower classification level (PDF, 36 KB)
- Working from home (PDF, 29 KB)
- Re-entering the workforce (PDF, 35 KB)
- Aggregated/averaging ordinary hours of work (PDF, 30 KB)
- Elder care, spousal care, caring for grandchildren (PDF, 38 KB)
Recognising and accommodating employees’ family obligations - Retention resource (PDF, 74 KB)
A detailed resource assisting organisations to determine why staff leave and how they can develop strategies to improve retention rates - Mentoring (PDF, 69 KB)
An effective strategy to retain the skills, knowledge and experience of your older workers - Career and lifestyle planning (PDF, 52 KB)
Help your employees make informed decisions on their career and retirement plans
Consider health and safety issues and how they affect mature-age workers and their ability to do their job.
- Provide an ergonomically sound and healthy work environment to help keep staff healthy and safe.
- Ensure all employees (regardless of age) are aware of injury prevention strategies.
- Productive, healthy workplaces (PDF, 51 KB)
Taking care of your workers' health and safety leads to greater productivity - WH&S Quiz
Is your business healthy and safe? Take this quiz to find out
Last updated 4 June 2010