Your creative team is arguably one of the most important teams in your organization. Creatives are responsible for your business’ voice and branding, ideas and designs, and establish your overall identity. This ensures a positive and consistent customer experience that builds brand loyalty. But, this is just one of the reasons why employee retention is so important, especially when it comes to your creative team.
So, let’s explore how to increase employee retention in creative teams with key retention strategies that have helped business performance all over the world! But first, let’s look at why employee retention matters.
5 benefits of employee retention
Why does employee retention matter? It’s a valid question when there are so many creatives looking for work. Well, it’s good for your employees, of course, but it’s also great for your business and here’s why!
1. Increased productivity and morale
A long-time employee is likely to be confident and familiar with their responsibilities and expectations, which means they’re usually far more productive than a new employee. Similarly, those who have been at the company for longer will have upskilled to meet changing customer demand and expectations, allowing them to get results in a shorter time frame. And of course, a higher productivity generally leads to increased revenue.
When employees feel valued and supported, they’re far more likely to have a high level of morale, which positively impacts retention. The lower morale is, the lower your employee retention rate will be.
2. Training and recruitment efficiency
If your company has a constant cycle of employees joining and leaving, it will have a major impact on recruitment and training efficiencies. Not only is recruitment time-consuming, it’s expensive, and the onboarding process and regular training are a drain on valuable resources. High staff retention levels mean team members across your organization can focus on their day-to-day responsibilities and their personal development. The longer you retain employees, the higher the return on investment will be on employee training.
3. Experienced employees
The longer your employees stay at your organization, the more they’re going to learn about your business, the creative process, the work environment, the industry and the customers. As the old saying goes, ‘Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced.’ This experience goes a long way towards solving problems, making decisions, driving change and ensuring the satisfaction of your clients and customers.
Of course, you won’t hold on to every employee forever – no business does. However, if you have loyal and experienced employees, they can develop within your business and act as mentors for those who join. This ensures stability and there are no disruptions to operations. Your best employees aren’t just loyal, they’re skilled and experienced too.
4. Improved employee satisfaction
Employee satisfaction is something every organization strives for and is just as important as customer satisfaction. An employee doesn’t necessarily have to love their specific job or role to be happy working for your company (although it does help). Simply feeling valued and recognized by a long-term employer can significantly raise job satisfaction. This also contributes to better employee experience and engagement, which also influences productivity and efficiency.
It’s also important to highlight that employee satisfaction has a huge influence over creativity, which is vital for those in creative teams.
5. Stronger company culture
A US survey found that 74% of workers believe a company’s culture influences their performance. With high staff turnover, it’s far more difficult to create a strong company culture, especially if the staff you lose share the same values as your business. Consistency and familiarity are key drivers to retaining a sense of normality, with long-standing employees acting as role models to new starters looking for guidance on cultural norms.
For more information, read our blog post on how to create an irresistible work environment for creative talent.
The best employee retention strategies in 2024
Regardless of industry, every organization can implement strategies that improve retention and positively affect overall efficiencies and business performance. Here are some of the best strategies you should consider implementing this year to improve employee retention.
Offer competitive salaries, training and opportunities
This may seem obvious, but it’s also one of the most vital ways to attract and retain top talent in your industry. Providing employees with competitive pay and benefits, training and the career development opportunities they deserve means your business may pay a little more throughout the year, but you’re likely to save money in the long term. High employee turnover costs your business thousands. Data shows that the average cost of filling a vacancy is more than £6,000, so if you’re regularly having to recruit this will very quickly add up.
Provide flexibility with working from home and reduced workday schemes
An enormous 69% of employees say the ability to work remotely is important, and 71% of employees cited that flexible working is important to them when considering a new role. Since the pandemic, more and more employees have seen the benefits of greater flexibility. Employers that are more accommodating are likely to hold on to employees for longer than those that aren’t. There are also theories that the four-day work week has major advantages to both employees and businesses and is a hugely desirable perk.
It’s worth noting that increased flexibility doesn’t lead to a drop in creativity. For more information, read our blog post on how to build and manage a remote creative team.
Encourage a healthy work-life balance
A survey found that a quarter of employees experience symptoms of burnout, which can contribute to high employee turnover. By encouraging a good work life balance you can prevent employee burnout and stress. It can be very easy for busy creatives to get so invested in work that they overlook taking time off to rest.
Help your workforce establish a better work-life balance by setting clear and achievable goals and expectations and listening to employee feedback. Provide time-management tools, set boundaries and lead by example.
Reward your employees to retain employees
Rewarding your staff for a job well done improves motivation, employee engagement and retention, such as through recognition schemes and career progression. Investing in your employees ensures they know they’re appreciated and encourages them to continue delivering consistently high-quality work. Financial rewards are always appreciated, but even non-financial rewards go a long way. Celebrating victories, both large and small, ensures employees feel valued, which also improves engagement – and engaged employees are more productive.
Ask your employees about the types of rewards they’d like to receive and tailor a reward scheme around what they want, rather than what you think they might want.
Reduce employee burnout
If your employees are struggling with burnout, they might be overworked and feeling stressed with deadlines to hit and not enough resource to get projects done on time. A healthy work environment can help with encouraging employees to speak up when they are feeling burnt out, and then you can put procedures in place to ensure that burnout is a thing of the past.
This is an excellent opportunity to introduce you to Smartshoring®. Smartshoring is an evolved form of offshoring which combines offshore creative production studios with in-country client service teams to support your in-house creative team deliver high-quality content on time and under budget.
Consider using Smartshoring® to take the production workload off of your in-house creative team while maintaining content production standards and deadlines.
Why do employees leave a business?
There are many reasons why employees quit a business. Some of these reasons are out of your control. But with many of them, you have a great deal of influence and it’s within your power to make positive changes and reduce employee churn.
Here are some common reasons why creative employees may leave a business:
- A lack of career advancement and growth opportunities
- Getting bogged down in admin and not having time to be creative
- A lack of employee benefits
- A lack of flexibility
- Feeling undervalued
- Poor rewards and recognition
- Burnout or high levels of stress
- A poor workplace culture
- Low levels of employee engagement
- Issues with location and commuting
- A lack of job satisfaction
- A poor work-life balance
- New opportunities elsewhere
- Inadequate technology or unsafe conditions
- Employees are expected to sacrifice quality to keep up with trends
Creating your own employee retention strategies
What works for one business might not work for another. After all, your employees are unique to your organization. That’s why it’s important to create an employee retention strategy that’s bespoke to your business.
Here are several steps to consider when creating your own employee retention programs:
Step 1: Use data gathered during employee surveys and exit interviews to assess why employees leave your organization to identify trends and patterns. Don’t be afraid to ask your team’s opinion too. After all, these are the people you want to keep!
Step 2: Define the objectives of your strategy (beyond simply improving retention, for example, improving employee satisfaction and company culture).
Step 3: Identify factors that drive retention and how they crossover with your objectives and reasons why employees leave your business.
Step 4: Develop initiatives that aim to improve employee satisfaction and retention rates based on what you’ve outlined during the previous steps.
Step 5: Implement your new strategy.
Step 6: Communicate these changes across your creative team and ensure employees have all the information and resources they need to make positive changes.
Step 7: Monitor and measure progress and continue to collate feedback and employee data.
Step 8: Make continuous improvements where possible.
Takeaways
Keeping employee retention rates high may sometimes feel like a losing battle, but with some time, planning and a little investment in your people, it can be turned into a battle you’ll win.
Effective employee retention strategies can make or break your business, so now’s the time to make positive changes and put a strategy together that works for you and your employees.
Contact us today to find out more about how We Are Amnet can support your business with Smartshoring® solutions. Our offshore creative production hubs and in-country client services teams will make sure you meet even the tightest deadlines and can provide additional skills without the need for large recruitment budgets. Keeping your in-house team working on the creative they love.
