4 Engagement Strategies to Attract and Retain Top Talent
23% of employees in Australia were engaged last year. This may sound like good news. However, a staggering 65% also said they didn’t feel engaged at all – a worrying sign for human resources teams and talent managers.
Employee disengagement costs the global economy over $400 billion. $9.6 trillion in productivity could be added to the economy if the global workforce were fully engaged!
But engagement isn’t just a HR metric. It’s also vital for innovation, consistent service delivery, loyal staff retention, and building a thriving workforce. So, how do you move beyond the data and ensure long-term retention? Keep reading as our experts share their top talent engagement strategies.
Why Does Employee Engagement Matter?
Employee engagement matters as it significantly impacts productivity and performance. In fact, engaged employees achieve 14% higher productivity levels and:
- Make 18% more sales
- Have 70% higher well-being
- Encourage 10% higher customer loyalty and engagement
- Help companies become 23% more profitable
They’re also inspired to be innovative and are more likely to contribute ideas. That’s why companies with high engagement consistently outperform those with low engagement! This creates a positive, motivated workplace culture, where employees feel a sense of purpose and believe their work matters.
Early engagement also has strong long-term benefits, like helping you retain loyal, talented employees. This is particularly important today, since 51% are currently watching for or actively seeking a new job!
Retention is much more cost-effective than replacing existing employees, which can cost up to 200% of their salary. You’ll also benefit from valuable knowledge retention – something that’s especially crucial in industries like health and aged care, where skilled staff members are key to good patient and client outcomes.
4 Top Talent Engagement Strategies for Long-Term Retention
The best way to attract and retain top talent is by engaging them before they start their role within your organisation.
Early engagement is key to long-term success as it creates strong, lasting first impressions and ensures new hires feel immediately part of the business’s bigger mission. It helps them learn why and how their contributions matter and become loyal, thriving members of the workforce.
Here are four talent engagement strategies to implement during the recruitment and onboarding phases of the employee journey:
- Set Clear Expectations
Ensure you’re attracting the right talent for the job by making your role expectations clear during the hiring process.
Creating honest job descriptions (without complex jargon) reduces confusion, while also lowering the chances of new hires starting their roles and realising they aren’t the right fit. Instead, focus on key skills and day-to-day duties for full transparency.
Emphasise the organisation’s values in the job description, during interviews, and from the very start of the onboarding process, too. One of the key drivers of employee engagement is purpose – doing work that feels meaningful and mission-driven.
By discussing your unique values, and how they apply to each role, employees can see how their work fits into the overall mission, the “why” behind the things you ask them to do. This ensures they’re aware of, and involved in, the business’s direction and organisational culture. And employees who feel connected to this culture are over four times more likely to be engaged at work!
2. Invest in Career Growth
Another key driver of employee engagement is development, or having opportunities to learn and grow.
It’s no secret that employees are more likely to stay if you’re invested in their career. This investment shows you care about their personal development and that they have a future within your workforce.
84% of employees agree that learning adds purpose to their work. However, just 15% say their manager has helped them build a career plan in the last six months. Collaborate with your workforce to create these plans by:
- Setting time aside for career development-focused conversations with employees
- Creating learning and career growth programmes tailored to every role
- Showcasing inspirational employee success stories
Investing in career development is especially important for retaining high performers who may otherwise look elsewhere for advancement opportunities.
3. Prioritise Flexibility
As well as being more engaged at work, employees who feel connected to their organisation’s culture are 62% less likely to very often or always feel burned out at work. They’re also 47% less likely to be watching for job opportunities or actively looking for a new job!
Another way to achieve this level of cultural connection and engagement? Creating flexible working practices.
49% of employees in Australia and New Zealand say they experienced a lot of stress the previous day. Letting this stress build up often turns into chronic burnout, where staff feel emotionally drained and lose motivation. This significantly increases absenteeism, and for those employees who do come into work, they become detached from the job. Instead, they’re ‘quietly quitting’ – simply doing the bare minimum.
Prevent this disengagement by helping employees achieve a good work-life balance. If possible, support hybrid and remote working. Ensure every team member has sufficient time off to recuperate and return to work feeling refreshed.
Demonstrate these flexible practices right away, from the onboarding stage. A great way to do this is with mobile workflows, where HR teams and new hires can complete essential paperwork and e-signatures from anywhere. This significantly speeds the process up and helps you engage top talent from across the world!
4. Celebrate Achievements
24% of employees cite a lack of recognition as their reason for seeking a new job. To be truly engaged, your workforce needs to feel that their contributions matter, their voices are heard, and their hard work is recognised.
Recognition doesn’t have to come in the form of expensive gifts or outings. Instead, try simple, yet visible celebrations on a day-to-day basis. Shout out an employee on your company website or highlight their hard work within a team meeting.
For companies with high-volume hiring and onboarding needs, finding spare moments outside of the daily operations to celebrate achievements (of both new hires and existing staff!) can be especially difficult. However, a great way to make time for this is by automating repetitive administrative tasks that unnecessarily take up the time of your HR team.
For instance, investing in employee onboarding software can lower your onboarding time and costs by up to 80%. Dedicated platforms like Onboard Express automatically generate contracts and forms, before sending them for review and to payroll at the click of a button.
These automations leave more time to celebrate employee achievements and create a culture of appreciation. Think dedicated rewards schemes or celebratory activities, for example. Great onboarding software even features personalised employee portals to help with this, allowing you to send tailored messages and celebrate those early milestones, like successfully completing a training module!
Engage and Retain Top Talent with Onboard Express
Real employee engagement takes more than one-off motivational speeches and temporary rewards. It means embedding engagement into your organisational culture, ensuring employees feel a true sense of purpose and meaning in their work.
And this starts even before day one, with effective onboarding. Let automated, mobile-first workflows handle admin tasks, so your HR team has more time to focus on long-term new-hire engagement as a core business priority.
Want to put these talent engagement strategies into practice? Contact Onboard Express today to book your free demo.