Employee Retention Ideas: How To Keep Your Top Talent

In an industry where the top talent pool is shrinking, keeping your highly skilled technicians from jumping ship is critically important. How can you keep your employees happy so they want to stay with you?

Here are some proven employee retention ideas that can help.

10 employee retention ideas for keeping the workers you count on

1. Treat people as individuals

For business owners and managers, it’s tempting to focus on a general list of the things employees typically want and need to feel satisfied with their job. That includes the employee retention strategies we discuss here. However, never forget that your employees are individuals with their own wants, needs, and priorities.

Take the time to get to know each of your employees. Find out what each one cares about and what motivates them in their job. Then make sure you’re providing those things to the best of your ability.

2. Prioritize health and safety

Employees don’t always leave by choice. Illness and injury can also cause you to lose key employees, either temporarily or permanently. Doing everything you can to help your staff stay safe and healthy also shows them how much you need and value them.

Here are a few ways you can do that:

• Make sure every field technician has appropriate PPE and uses PPE correctly.
• Keep vehicles, tools, and equipment maintained and in good working order.
• Encourage your technicians to take advantage of their union medical benefits and get regular physicals and health checks.

The last point can also help employees to recognize the financial value of the benefits they get from union membership. That knowledge may discourage them from being tempted by non-union jobs that may pay a little more but not provide them with medical coverage.

3. Build a supportive team

It can be challenging to make your technicians feel like they are part of a team when they don’t physically work together every day. You must actively create that team culture by bringing people together in other ways, such as:

• Staff meetings (that include time for mingling and conversation)
• Training sessions (with a break for socializing)
• Activities outside of work, such as a bowling night or family picnic

Along with helping people get to know one another, you also need to reinforce the fact that everyone on the team is valued. One way to do this is to regularly share people’s accomplishments (especially when they get praise from a customer) with the entire team.

4. Communicate effectively and honestly

Don’t allow the rumor mill to become the way employees find out what’s going on in your company. Gossip spreads misinformation and mistrust.

Instead, set up regular ways to share information with your staff. It can be a weekly email, staff meeting, or Zoom call. Make sure you’re sharing what people want to know as well as what they need to know. That’s what will encourage them to read the emails or participate in meetings. (One company we know shares a silly meme at the end of employee emails to encourage them to open and read to the end.)

IMPORTANT: When you have bad news to share that significantly impacts your employees, don’t do it by email if you can avoid that. If possible, deliver it in person, in a phone call, or in a Zoom meeting where you can assess people’s reactions and answer their questions.

5. Check in with each employee regularly

In addition to team communication, retaining your top talent (and all your talent) means regularly checking in with each person to learn about how things are going for them. In a larger organization, you can have field supervisors check in with each technician, and then report back to you.

Don’t just ask, “how’s everything going?” If you want honest answers (and you do), then be specific with your questions. Here are just a few examples:

• Is there anything we can do as a company to better support you in your work?
• What causes you the most frustration on a daily basis?
• Do you have any thoughts or ideas for improving how we do things?

Also, be sure to let employees know exactly what they are doing that you value most. Praise needs to be specific to motivate employees to repeat the right actions.

6. Provide comprehensive training

To feel satisfied and fulfilled, every employee needs to feel competent. Feeling like they are in over their head, or burdened with tasks that they don’t know how to handle, can lead to employees looking for work elsewhere.

Make sure employees have the chance to learn what they want and need to know to succeed. For example:

• Offer mentor situations so experienced techs can pass along their deep knowledge
• Allow technicians the time to attend manufacturer training, conferences, and other industry training opportunities
• Help techs get into the union training program if appropriate
• Offer your own classes on key topics

Also, don’t limit training to technical subjects. It’s often the soft skills that employees have trouble with, because they receive no training in these areas.

Check out these articles that can help you teach skills like selling contracts and handling an angry customer.

7. Say thank you

We can’t overstate the importance of formally expressing your appreciation for your staff’s hard work and contributions to your company’s success. Here are a few ideas:

• Perks like catered lunches and snacks in the office, fun company outings, or offering college scholarships to their children
• Acknowledgement of milestones like birthdays and anniversaries
• Sharing positive customer feedback and employee accomplishments with the team

8. Promote an open door policy

Employees need to feel comfortable coming to you with a problem. Never make them feel like they have to have a solution in mind to share a concern.

In our business (and especially during the pandemic), your technicians can’t actually see your open door since they’re not in the office. That means you need to regularly tell them it’s open, and that you are always willing to listen to what they have to say.

To make this work, you must respond appropriately when they do share a concern with you. Don’t ever belittle or dismiss someone’s problem or idea. Make sure they know you are taking it seriously and looking into a solution.

9. Offer choices whenever possible

Work life balance and personal satisfaction matter a great deal to your employees. Your work conditions need to be in line with union negotiated agreements, but that doesn’t mean you can’t offer your employees choices:

• If you can, allow technicians to specialize in the type of work and the types of accounts that interest them most.
• Whenever possible, consider offering some flexibility in work starting and ending times.
• When it comes to overtime, realize that some employees view it as a benefit, and others would rather avoid it. Of course, the need for overtime is often unavoidable, especially for Refrigeration and other urgent service work. However, it helps to be upfront about your expectations and work with employees to come up with an arrangement that’s both fair and works for everyone’s needs.

10. Give back to the community

When you care for your community, you care for your employees. Getting involved in volunteer projects can bring your team together and help to make their work feel more meaningful.

You can do something as simple as collecting toys for kids at the holidays or matching employees’ donations to charity. Or, you can come together for larger team projects such as sending supplies to areas devastated by storms or fires.

More articles for HVAC and Refrigeration company owners and managers

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