By Veronica Johns

The 2023/2024 financial year brings a movement of people and resources which, as an employer, will add to your staff retention challenges. Below, we have outlined why now is the best time to focus on employee retention and some strategies on what this looks like as an employer.

Why now?

It’s the perfect time to budget for your HR strategies

A new financial year equals restored budgets and brings exciting opportunity to invest in HR strategies. Studies have shown that the most common reasons people resign from a job are:

Lack of promotional opportunities (43%)
Uncompetitive salary (39%)
Poor management style or workplace culture (37%)
Lack of new challenges (33%).

This is the perfect time to consider how you can further invest in your retention strategies, which will also pay dividends when attracting new talent to your organisation.

Heightened activity in the job market

A new financial year brings heightened activity to the job market. This is because new goals are set, projects start, and new budgets are allocated, creating new jobs. It is the perfect time for dissatisfied employees to consider their options. In fact, Jobfitts recommends for employees to use the new financial year to thoroughly evaluate what they have accomplished so far and if they’re happy in their current roles.

“It is a time when employees traditionally reassess their careers and make the decision to stay or go.”, reports News.com.au.

This coupled with the fact that one third of Australian workers are considering quitting their jobs; means organisations have a higher risk of losing good people and fast, at this time of year.

What can you do?

Although it is important year-round, the new financial year brings an opportunity to address these risks and to focus more heavily on employee retention.

Employee retention is defined as the organisational goal of keeping talented employees and reducing turnover by fostering a positive work atmosphere. Some examples of nurturing employee retention include:

Learning and Development. This provides your team with the tools to learn and grow, and positions themselves for promotions. It also directly addresses employee retention with 94% of employees saying they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development
Encouraging a healthy work culture. This includes making room for creativity, fostering respect and inclusivity in the workplace, connecting with your team, and encouraging a healthy work-life balance
Providing career growth opportunities. Invite your people to take part in broader business projects to both bring their existing skills to the forefront and learn new ones. Also, encouraging mentorship is a great way to further develop key capabilities
Cultivating a culture of positive feedback. Employee Recognition Programs are a great way to facilitate sharing positive feedback, as well as taking time to share ‘good news’ stories across the organisation
A strong induction program. With 31% of employees leaving their jobs within the first six months, a strong induction program will assist your new employees through their probation period.

You can explore some more specific employee retention strategies to adopt here.

Not only is a strong retention strategy great for business, ultimately it is your customers that reap the benefits with consistent service quality, which means repeat business.

*This article first appeared on the Beaumont website

*Veronica Johns is a marketing coordinator at Beaumont