4 Ways To Retain Top Talent In Your Workplace

The best workers do the best work, which is why every Australian business is competing to retain top talent. But is offering a high salary enough to convince them to stay?

Australia is currently experiencing one of its largest ever labour shortages, with more than 423,000 job vacancies according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. With such high demand for workers, businesses are also struggling to fill those vacancies, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics reporting unemployment at 3.9% and the participation rate at 66.7%.

In short, this means many businesses will be looking for new ways to attract top talent - including yours.

At foundU, we're seeing many businesses struggling to retain top talent in the current market, particularly those with front-line workforces. Retaining good workers is never easy, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. Keep reading to discover how to retain top talent in your business.

Offer learning and development opportunities

One of the best solutions to retaining your top talent is finding and offering opportunities for them to grow their skills.

According to insights published in an RMIT Online report, employees value organisations that invest in their professional development. Of those surveyed, 76% indicated they see learning and development opportunities as a sign their employer cares about their development and wants to invest in them.

Learning and development opportunities are beneficial for both staff and employers. The business benefits from the extra skills and knowledge, employees can be rewarded for their time through salary increases or just plain recognition. Win/win.

Create a positive working environment

It sounds obvious, but your top talent won't continue working for you if you provide a negative working environment.

According to research by the National Australia Bank, 25% of Australian employees are considering leaving their current place of employment. The key reasons: a lack of personal fulfilment, purpose or meaning, career limitations, mental health concerns and poor pay.

With these numbers, it's important for businesses to do what they can to ensure they are providing a positive working environment for employees. Below are some ideas to get you started:

• Offer a flexible working policy for a greater work-life balance
• Develop an employee assistance program to support staff well-being
• Make physical exercise a priority with by offering exercise classes
• Offer early access to earned wages (more on that below)
• Promote communication between employees, teams and hierarchies

Enable early access to earned wages

As the struggle to retain top talent continues, more discerning employees are looking for opportunities that offer benefits above and beyond a higher salary. Coupled with increasing cost of living pressures, there has never been a better time to offer your employees early access to earned wages.

By providing employees early access to earned wages, employers are opening their doors to a range of benefits. Key among them: greater employee productivity, well-being and retention. Results from an employee survey we conducted in 2021 indicate as much, with 79% of employees agreeing that their employer cares about their well-being by offering earned wage access.

There are a range of earned wage access providers in the market, but it's important to find one that uses real data to calculate an employee's available pay. At foundU, our earned wage access feature offers exactly that.

Mandeep Singh, General Manager at National Protective Services, says that foundU's earned wage access functionality has been a great addition to their platform.

"Many of our guards know and use the earned wage access feature to draw down on their wages before payday," Mandeep said.

"Giving staff the ability to manage their own finances is the future of payroll, and I think, one of the great features of foundU."

Ensure payroll is correct every time

It may sound obvious, but paying your employees (especially top talent) correctly and on time is crucial to retaining them.

Your top talent are vital to sustaining and growing your business. If they are not paid on time or incorrectly, their productivity will be negatively affected. If their income is continuously impacted, you may run the risk of them finding a new place to work - as well as potential legal issues.

Implementing the foundU platform can help ensure your staff are paid accurately and on time. With scheduling and payroll in the one system, data flows seamlessly through your payroll calculator to accurately serve up the right penalty rates, overtime and allowances, regardless of where, when and how staff work. The best part - it can all be done with just a few clicks.

Emma Wu, Financial Manager at NightOwl, says that the foundU platform has given them greater confidence in their payroll processes.

"The foundU platform has really given us confidence that our payroll is accurate, and as a business it has enabled us to be much more effective than we have ever been," Emma said.

"Once the awards and agreements were set-up in the foundU system, payroll became automatic and error-free. Data from rosters and staff timesheets flow seamlessly onto payroll, which is great. If we were ever to be audited, we're very confident that we could easily get all the information we need and it would be accurate."

Want to know more about foundU? Book a Demo.