Retaining top performers is vital for business success.

Fortunately, there is a tool that can help you—employee retention rate. We also refer to it as employee engagement rate, as often engagement goes hand-in-hand with retention. Employee engagement rate provides useful insight regarding your ability to keep top performers in your team. In this article, we tell you how to calculate your employee engagement rate and provide 5 proven tactics to improve engagement in your team.

How to calculate employee engagement rate

The employee engagement rate is calculated annually. It divides the number of employees with one year or more of service by the number of staff in those positions a year ago. Don’t count positions added during the year though. Smaller or larger periods can be used when needed, but the equation is based on an annual calculation.

The basic formula for calculating turnover is:

(# of separations during the measurement period /

average # of employees during the measurement period) x 100

Improving employee engagement rate

There are things you can do to improve employee engagement. The following 5 tactics are tried and true, and are sure to improve your employee engagement rate.

1.      Recruit Smarter

The best way to keep top employees is to get the right people in the door in the first place. Tailor your recruitment strategies to customised candidate profiles. This will improve the quality of applicants and help you spot great candidates among good ones. An employee referral plan is also a smart way to find quality candidates.

2.      Don’t Assume Employees Are Happy

Implement regular engagement surveys to stay on top of engagement levels across the team. Then use the information you collect to inform your retention strategy. But a note of caution. Asking employees for their input and then failing to use that data will make you look dishonest and make employees feel undervalued. This will have the opposite affect of what we are trying to achieve here.

3.      Create Two-Way Communication

To excel in their roles, staff need regular constructive feedback. But annual performance reviews are not regular enough. And a third of employees say they find performance reviews futile and pointless. Instead, apply more frequent check-ins between yourself and your employees. And make sure to have an open door policy.

4.      Implement An Employee Recognition Program

In addition to giving useful feedback, recognise accomplishments of the team and team members. Without this, employees feel unappreciated and can disengage from work. Recognition can be given during a team meeting. Or through a company-wide delivery platform such as a newsletter.

5.      Create a Solid Team Culture

Employees not happy with their team’s culture are 24% more likely to leave. Moreover, 77% of job seekers consider company culture before applying for a job. There’s not much you can do about company culture. But you can ensure the culture in your team is solid and enjoyable.

Enhance your professional development and leadership skills with courses at Odyssey Training. Odyssey Training delivers short courses for frontline staff and are dedicated to providing you with the skills you need to enhance your competitiveness. 

Actively engaged staff members have an emotional commitment to their work and take greater responsibility for it, which positively benefits their job satisfaction, co-workers, and employer. Employee Engagement and Motivation 1 day course will empower you with a real-world understanding of employee engagement so that you can build the emotional commitment level of your staff, and they start to care for their work, not just their paycheck.