HOW OUTSOURCING HR HELPS INCREASE RETENTION RATES

High staff turnover can severely impact business performance, but how can businesses increase their employee retention rates? When thinking about maintaining your people, consider adding outsourced support to your HR stack. Outsourcing HR can help structure your business to meet employee needs and drive business goals.

Outsourced HR services are perfect for small businesses and startups, taking on the tasks that often fall to operations managers or CEOs. We provide legal and personnel expertise, giving your employees support when they need it and managing compliance, grievances and documentation on your behalf.

Read more about our HR Consultancy for SMEs.

EMPLOYEE RETENTION IS A SIGN OF BUSINESS HEALTH

Recruiting staff requires hours of managerial time to be diverted towards reviewing applications, conducting interviews, onboarding and training. In theory, you only have to go through this once per role and your team is filled.

However, when team members leave, the whole process starts again to hire a replacement. According to CIPD research, the UK average employee turnover rate is high, sitting at 35%. With more than 1 in every 3 employees leaving their jobs each year, particularly from small businesses, charities and public sector organisations, leaders have a significant challenge to overcome.

High staff turnover costs money through frequent hiring cycles and lower productivity. It also leads to less cohesive teams that struggle to embed effective ways of working or strong client relationships. Your long-standing employees pick up the slack of inexperienced workers time and again, increasing frustration and burnout.

At its worst, low employee retention can damage your business reputation and entrench low staff morale, causing employees to disengage from their work.

HOW HR HELPS INCREASE RETENTION RATES 

Human Resources forms a key part of any strong employee retention strategy, as this is the infrastructure that builds and supports your staff body. It’s not just about recruitment and disciplinaries: HR takes care of performance management, absences, grievances, policies and legal compliance.

When these aspects aren’t visible, employees are less likely to stay in your business. Here’s how outsourcing HR helps increase retention rates.

Recruitment Efficiencies

If somebody is not right for a role, keeping them for the sake of your turnover rate is unwise. HR services can make it easier to recruit the right people, with templated application forms and interview questions. Finding these efficiencies can streamline candidate selection at each stage, giving clear indicators of suitability.

Our interview templates often include competency questions, so your hiring managers get a clear picture of the applicant’s skills and experience. We can also provide interview coaching and support to make interviews a more comfortable and productive experience for all parties.

As a combined HR and recruitment service, Clover HR has access to a large pool of potential applicants in every sector, with ongoing support for both candidates and employers.

Improved Onboarding Experience 

Onboarding is vital for new employees to feel confident, settle in and start work.

HR services can have payroll, contracts, policies and training resources ready for new starters on day one, reducing workload for managers and ensuring prompt completion of these important documents.

Streamlined onboarding can reassure your new team members that the business is well run, making a great first impression. It can also help them find answers to all their early questions and set the tone for future interactions.

The sense of security offered by confident, well-managed onboarding is vital for employees to see a future for themselves at a new workplace.

Bespoke Training & Development 

People thrive on a sense of achievement and forward progress. When staff are supported to improve their skills, they feel a greater sense of engagement with their work and know that they are valued.

By providing opportunities for training and development and encouraging your team, you’ll show that you are interested in their growth and progress, improving employee engagement. Training can involve learning leadership skills such as communication, decision-making and conflict resolution, or role-based skills that will improve their capacity for work.

When employees are engaged, they are more likely to stay with an employer. Fostering a training and development culture shows employees that you see and value their potential, but for SMEs, it can be difficult to find the time and resources to implement training.

Outsourced HR can support a learning culture with bespoke training delivery such as seminars, online resources and access to courses. At Clover HR, we also provide coaching and mentoring for leaders to support their development in highly specific ways, improving their skills with results felt throughout the organisation.

Enhanced Employee Engagement Programmes

Employee voice is key to running a strong, coherent company. When given opportunities to give feedback and influence the company, employees feel valued and more engaged in their work.

Employee surveys, focus groups, or simply asking their opinions can all provide valuable insight into the front-line experience in your organisation. Exit interviews are also important opportunities to reflect on what led to the employee leaving.

Fair Compensation & Benefits

In many cases, employees leave to seek higher pay at a competing organisation. A HR consultancy firm can help you retain employees by finding the optimal salary rate for each pay grade.

HR experts conduct salary benchmarking to ensure all employees are fairly rewarded for their work and that salaries are competitive. The rate should be right for your business and the market.

A quality HR service can also provide flexible benefits, which can include optional and non-optional benefits that improve employee retention. Flexible benefits allow employees options, giving them control over their working conditions and freedom to choose those that suit their personal circumstances.

While core benefits are basics like annual leave, sick pay and tea and coffee provision, flexible benefits can include cycle to work schemes, childcare vouchers, private medical care, gym memberships and discounted tickets.

Outsourced HR can give bespoke employee retention strategies, as we have access to more corporate benefits than a small business can manage alone. These benefits can make the difference between staying with your company or leaving for a similar role elsewhere.

Conflict Resolution & Support

When disagreements arise, knowing how to resolve the issue is not always easy. Many people leave employment because of a conflict that is poorly managed, leaving a tension that makes work unpleasant or kills motivation.  

Employee support for grievances or disagreements is important to repair working relationships and keep teams working smoothly beyond negative experiences.

In previous work, Clover HR has reviewed the management of sickness absence, as this was becoming a source of conflict. We updated company policies to introduce triggers for regular short-term absence and identify patterns of behaviour so that colleagues could be adequately supported or challenged as needed.

Tailored Support for Teams

With the wealth of experience and expertise that outside HR services can provide, you’ll have access to bespoke strategies to support employee retention, no matter how unique your business model is. HR professionals can support workers in-office, working from home or with hybrid arrangements, and provide organisational advice at any level required.

In some cases, particularly where regulations mean a large amount of change has to happen quickly, Clover HR has worked with senior management teams to redesign the organisational structure in a way that supports the needed changes. This collaborative exercise can improve workplace culture and staff experience to reduce employee turnover by half.

Consistent Compliance 

Finally, adhering to employment regulations is vital to keeping your best and brightest employees on board. When staff are mistreated, worked beyond their contracted hours or faced with unfair disciplinaries, they very quickly seek other employment.

Outsourcing HR can increase employee retention rates by bringing a fresh, independent observer into the space, ensuring consistent application of the rules. In some cases, we have introduced auditing processes, allowing senior management to quickly identify and resolve performance issues in a fair and equitable manner.

HOW OUTSOURCING HR CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS OBJECTIVES 

By outsourcing your HR responsibilities, senior leadership teams can focus on business goals and driving growth. Outsourcing can also save costs, as you pay a rate for our services rather than the salaries of multiple HR employees in house.

You’ll get access to expertise in all areas, tailored to your business needs. When a problem arises, your HR consultancy firm will have the tools and personnel ready to help you deal with it quickly, saving time that would otherwise be spent handling issues without experience.

HR services also have access to data analytics that can provide insights into employee behaviour and trends. Accounts for these tools are often expensive for smaller businesses to invest in, but an outside agency will use the tool for all clients. These insights can highlight patterns such as seasonal lows, regular lulls in productivity or issues arising in particular teams.

CAN I OUTSOURCE ONLY RETENTION? 

Employee retention results from a range of actions on the part of business leaders, and may not be improved by a one-size-fits-all approach. When you outsource HR to our consultancy, we can create a bespoke plan around improving retention. This plan may include reviewing your onboarding, grievance processes, benefits or other HR functions, and implementing changes as needed. These diverse strategies are all part of how outsourcing HR helps increase retention rates.

HOW LONG CAN IT TAKE TO SEE RETENTION IMPROVEMENT FROM HR OUTSOURCING? 

This can depend on your business goals. Employee retention rates are usually measured year to year, making lowering the number of staff leaving each year an excellent long-term goal. We can help you develop achievable, time-bound short-term and long-term goals and achieve them with qualified strategies.

Short-term goals may include improving staff morale and engagement, improving hiring processes and increasing the number of staff attending training sessions, for example.

IS OUTSOURCING RETENTION A LONG-TERM STRATEGY FOR BUSINESSES?

Absolutely, outsourcing HR with a long-term goal to improve staff retention creates more experienced, cohesive and confident teams, who know your business well and have strong relationships with clients, suppliers and customers. The efficiencies gained through long years of service are compounded across a well-retained workforce, improving productivity incrementally in ways that last.

HOW CLOVER HR CAN HELP YOUR EMPLOYEE RETENTION

There is a clear correlation between outsourcing HR, reduced churn and business success, which is why many UK businesses are using expert HR consultancy firms to manage this important department. By entrusting HR functions to specialists, your business can benefit from tried and tested strategies to retain the best personnel in the industry.

To discuss how Clover HR can help you increase retention rates, speak to an advisor today on 0330 175 6601 or contact us via our enquiry form.