As the economy and labour market improves, companies are expecting voluntary staff turnover to increase. To reduce this phenomenon, managers have two objectives: ensure their employees’ commitment and retain the best talent.
According to a survey conducted by Mercer in the United States and Canada, half of 470 companies surveyed expect an increase in voluntary staff turnover. This trend is expected to be confirmed as the labour market improves. But economic reasons are not the only explanation. It must be said that employee morale has been rather down lately. Mercer had the same to say last year when the survey “Work in question” was published, which dealt specifically on employee commitment and erosion of a sense of belonging to the company.
Reward programs
Given the coming phenomenon, leaders are getting ready and rewards should play a significant role to foster employee commitment and encourage them to stay. Thus, 85% of Canadian companies believe that attracting, recruiting, hiring and retaining talent will be critical in the short term. And while companies are setting aside limited budgets for merit these days, non-pecuniary rewards have increased in importance.
Wages and responsibilities on the rise
In the last 18 months, several programs have been set up to strengthen employee commitment: communication of the total value of rewards to all employees, the use of social media to enhance employees’ experience, formalizing career planning, increasing internal or external training and the use of specific recognition programs. Despite everything, companies seem aware that wage increases remain one of the best actions (50%), followed by career development (47%) and increased responsibilities (46%). The slight difference in Canada is that increased responsibilities is in the lead (52%), followed by wage increases (50%) and career development (44%).