Businesses fail, every single day. While it’s true that there are more small and micro businesses than there have ever been before with a reported 94% of companies in the UK employing 10 or fewer people in 2017, it’s also true that many of these small businesses struggle. They struggle to grow, they find it hard to make a profit for the first few years, they find it hard to reach a wide audience and really impress their market, and around 20% of small businesses fail in the first year, with 60% not passing the five year mark.

There are of course many reasons for these businesses failing to make their mark. But, one way to give your business the very best chance at success, is recruiting, training and retaining the top talent. Unfortunately, while most managers focus their efforts on recruitment and training, to ensure that they’ve got the best people to take their business forward and provide customers and clients with a consistent service or product, they struggle with retention. In fact, it’s thought that over two-thirds of small to medium business owners in the UK face often crippling staff retention issues and increasingly high turnover levels.

The Importance of Good Retention Levels

Before creating any kind of turnover improvement plans, it’s important to understand why you should. It’s not just as simple as the best staff do the best work. There’s more to it than that.

Firstly, recruitment, when done well is time-consuming and expensive. Finding the right employees is often a tough process, with more than a little luck involved in creating the perfect team. If you need to recruit new team members regularly, you will always be spending money and wasting time.

Even if recruitment is a smooth process, your team will take a step backward, as you train its new members. Again, costing money and time. On top of that, while you are weakened, you could face decreased earning potential.

It’s also bad for your reputation. If great staff are leaving your company all of the time, people will start to wonder why. You might struggle to attract experienced staff or even promising graduates, and your customers might begin to ask questions if faces are ever changing.

Problems with Retaining the Best Staff

So, we can see that keeping the top talent is essential to growing a business. But, as a smaller business without a massive budget, competitive bonus schemes and room to grow, it can be tough. As a small business, it can feel as though you can’t offer your top talent a good reason to stay.

How to Keep Your Best Team Members

But, that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. Keeping great staff isn’t all about what you can afford to pay them. You can offer a comprehensive Reward & Recognition scheme. You a unique position to provide your employees with a chance to be a part of a growing company. You can allow inexperienced staff to learn and grow with you, and as a smaller company, you might be able to offer your team members increased flexibility.

Retaining the best staff is one of the best ways to give your business a chance to succeed. While it can be tough, it’s by no means impossible. You just need to work out what you’ve got to offer them.