Many business owners and managers think that employees are automatically loyal, just because they’re getting paid. The truth is loyalty does not have a price. Loyalty must be earned. All the money, benefits or well-structured team building exercises will not retain employees, if you keep treating them poorly. If your company has high employee turnover, maybe it’s time to look in the mirror.

No one says increasing employee loyalty will be easy. Inspiring loyalty is a tricky thing, it’s intangible. Fortunately, there are some tactics you can employ to increase employee loyalty.

Understand what ‘employee loyalty’ means

Employee loyalty is an intangible set of emotions, that make employees feel attached to their current employer, and less likely to seek other opportunities. To increase employee loyalty, you must increase the positive emotions and decrease the negative emotions that your employees feel.

Understanding that you’re dealing with root emotions, rather than the specific behaviours those emotions drive, it is important to keep you focused on what really matters.

Offer competitive and fair compensation

Employees expect to be paid at their market value for their skill set. If they find a similar job elsewhere with more pay, they will quickly feel undervalued and demotivated.

Employees also expect to be paid as much as their peers who are doing the same work, regardless of whether those peers are better at negotiating salaries.

Invest more time in the hiring process

Hiring the right staff takes a lot of time, but a rigorous process pays off when you find the right person. You need to ensure you pick someone who can do the job, but perhaps, more importantly, fits your company culture, and mix well with the rest of the team. Through the Recruit Mint process, we meet all clients and candidates face to face to make sure we find the perfect candidate.

Improve company culture

Company culture is the personality of a company. It defines the environment in which employees work. Company culture includes a variety of elements, including work environment, company mission, value, ethics, expectations, and goals.

Company culture can be a great method of attracting loyal staff, as it has become a high priority for job seekers. Increase employee loyalty by creating a working environment which people enjoy working in.

Manage employee engagement

Employee engagement is an important component of loyalty. Watch who participates during meetings and training sessions, see who does the lion’s share of the work during team projects, get to know your employees on a personal and individual level.

Focus on continued professional development

Help your employees grow and develop, not only will this help them feel valued and increase their loyalty, but it will also improve their skill set, and make them better at their job. Get to understand what your employees’ goals are, create development plans so they can see that you value them as an employee and an individual. This will actively show that you and the business care about them.

Avoid micromanagement

Part of earning an employee’s loyalty is showing them that you trust them to do their job. If you’re constantly looking over their shoulder, you’re not letting them grow and develop. While taking charge of everything may seem like a good idea, it’s a sure-fire way to generate animosity and distrust in your staff. Instead, set reachable goals, ensure employees have the skills and resources to get the job done and give feedback during and after the fact in order to mould performance positively.

Reward appropriately

Rewards and benefits can be powerful loyalty builders, but they must be appropriate to the action or else they’ll create an impression of imbalance or favouritism. Be sure to reward your employees liberally, but ensure the reward matches the deed and make sure there is consistency, if another employee achieves a similar goal, ensure the reward is of similar calibre.

Empower employees to make choices

Increase employee loyalty by giving employees a sense of freedom and control. You might let employees work from home when needed, make decisions themselves or allow a flexible work schedule to balance family life. Those freedoms show confidence, help employees tailor the job to their needs and make them feel valued.

Show your employees that you care

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is one way to show your employees that you care about the causes they care about. Programs such as donation matching, volunteer days, and even product donations that your employees choose have shown to be beneficial to increase employee morale and improve your employees’ loyalty to your company.

By showing your employees that you care, their loyalty to your company will increase as they become more and more involved in programs they care about.

Plan outside team building and brainstorming sessions

Apart from your regular work meetings in the board room or boss’s office, organise fun team building, brainstorming and motivational seminars and outings. These activities allow employees to get to know one another outside of the workplace and visit locations that they may not normally get to see. Team building events inspire and motivate, resulting in great communication and ideas that will benefit the company.

Celebrate employee milestones

Celebrating work anniversaries, birthdays and staff achievements shows that your company values long-term team members. Increase employee loyalty with a meaningful reward program — a small bonus and ceremony in front of peers can go a long way.

How Recruit Mint can help you increase employee loyalty

Hiring the right staff at the beginning can have a massive impact on employee loyalty and reducing staff turnover. Our rigorous 17-step process includes meeting both the client and candidates face to face. For the client this allows us to get to really know the client, understand what they want and what the working environment is like, for the candidate, it allows to get to know them better and gain a better understanding of what they have done in their previous roles, whilst getting to know their personality to determine if they would be good fit for the client.

We are that confident in our process and our consultants, we offer the Recruit Mint Gold Leaf service, with this we provide 6 months guarantee with a 110% rebate during this period. If you want to reduce staff turnover, increase employee loyalty and boost profits in the process, then get in touch today on 01733 802300 or by dropping an email to us. Alternatively, you can submit your job without delay.