Alternative to benchmarking and salary grading which can help control retention rate

My reality check here is for those staff who has similar job title, responsibility, education, experience and so on but still gets paid less compared to the salaries in market. For example, an employee who works as a sales agent gets paid 1000 USD, however, employees working in similar industries with similar profiles may get paid 1500 USD or even 2000 USD. Another example could be employees at grade 1 and 2 in one company may be receiving salary with negligible difference where the employee at grade 1 sees no point in working hard to reach at grade 2. On the other hand, in a company which follows right grading structure may have appropriate salary grading which keeps grade 1 employee motivated enough to climb the ladder as grade 2.

In the above scenarios, it’s highly possible that the employees may approach their  department managers and HR department with their respective issues. Most of the time, the responses which an employee may receive can be false hopes and promises for the future or telling the employees that it is employees who are not capable to receive a higher salary or telling the employee that they should be happy they have a job and so on. And if this is not enough, they may even be asked to go and look for other opportunities outside. Those sitting at higher management may not even know the serious issues which the employees are facing or how the department manager is more interested in saving his seat and helpless HR who may or may not be able to have empathy with the staff. Moreover, the retention rate, and the reasons due which an employee has resigned may be hided from the owner of the company where the owner of the company is just giving importance to the stories presented by the chain of people reporting to the owner or higher management.

The reality check – What is it that the higher management can do if they are not ready to benchmark their salaries, align a proper grading structure or if the company is not doing that great to take on additional financial cost.

As rightly said, time is money. So, if the higher management can spend some time on below suggested solutions, they may be able to bear fruitful results.

1. Accepting truth – The higher management should accept the truth regarding the salary issues and the impact which it brings. The earlier you build that acceptance in a positive way the better it is.
2. Facing the fact – Once this fact is accepted, they should be ready to face the implications which is unhappy and demotivated employees. Running away from employee’s questions and closing the door is not the solution.
3. Job Descriptions – Its very important to draft and keep updating the JD’s for an employee. It should not be that the responsibilities and the job title which an employee has does not reconcile. There are several benefits of JD’s, the most important being non-exploitation of manpower and building specialized team.
4. Structural Hierarchy – Aligned and reconciled JD’s help is building a proper organization structure. It can make the employee feel responsible and honored. Some may compromise with their salaries for challenging roles which can enhance their career in the future.
5. Trainings for Department Heads – Department managers and heads are the people connecting the hierarchy above and below them. They need refresher trainings on many subjects including how to tackle the insecurity which gets built up within their team in a positive manner. The reasons due to which salaries cannot be graded should be communicated clearly to the employees. This in turn builds up the confidence within an employee towards their line manager and company both.
6. Succession Planning – Defining appropriate KPI’s, JD’s and aligning the goals of the employees with that of the organization may replace the insecurity built up for the reasons mentioned above. Creating a path for growth may retain the loyalty of an employee for a long duration.
7. Employee Survey – On regular basis conduct anonymous employee survey on various topics where the employee can openly share their thoughts, worries, feedback, suggestions, expectations and so on. This will help in understanding what more is missing or needs improvement other than salaries. Those factors which needs no, or minimum financial involvement can be worked upon and move one step forward in creating happy employees and building trust.
8. Employee Engagement – Employee surveys will also help in understanding what the employees feel about their organisation mentally and emotionally. It is important for the line managers to channelize the energy levels of an employee with that of company goals to increase business which in turn will stablilise the company financially and at some point, will enable to activate the dream of benchmarking.
9. Employee Welfare – There are some added benefits which an organisation pays except for salary such as insurance, health plans, overtime and so on. The higher management needs to review does it really bring any benefit to the employee or is it just for namesake.
10. Life Coach and Motivational Session– Companies are more inclined towards sales and product trainings. However, life coach and motivational sessions can be equally important. They help in tackling the mental and emotional issues faced by an employee.
11. Fair Rewards & Recognition – Each month there can be some time spent in recognizing and appreciating the employees either department wise, team wise or company wise. The senior management must make sure it is fair without any favours, and bad politics.
12. Zero Biasness Policy – A company must have certain policies which should be zero tolerant and biasness is one of them. Building favoritismonly give rise to negative work culture.

In conclusion, the best alternative solution to reduce retention rate is to keep an employee happy. Employees don’t work for salary alone; they also work for positive work culture and healthy environment too.