Building a loyal workforce

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The number one reason why employees leave their employer is poor management. Conversely, many people will often stay with an organisation that they don’t like if they have a manager that they enjoy working for and feel loyal towards.

Encouraging employee loyalty

To encourage loyalty amongst employees, organisations should consider:

• leadership: provide clear vision, goals and objectives that involve people at all levels of the organisation. (See the Leadership section for more information.)
• involvement: involve employees in the decision making processes. Employees often have a valuable perspective that is not obvious to members of the management team.
• ethical, equitable and legal treatment of employees: ensure that people are treated ethically, equitably and legally. This includes taking a zero-tolerance approach towards managing bullying and discrimination.
• organisational values: recruit staff with similar values to those of the organisation and ensure that those values are core to everything that the organisation does.
• valuing individuals: give everyone an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the organisation and ensure that the organisation recognises people for the contribution that they make as individuals and as teams.
• team: encourage a sense of team by providing opportunities for social interaction amongst staff, for example, by creating a sport and social club.  
• remuneration package: ensure that employee remuneration is in line with that offered by similar organisations for similar positions.
• opportunity for growth and development: wherever possible, provide opportunities for each individual to develop as far as they can (and want to) within the organisation. (See the Your development and Managing performance, learning and skills development sections for more information on developing people.)

How flexible are you?

Employers should also consider how they can improve flexibility to encourage loyalty within the organisation. People are more likely to stay with an employer that encourages work-life balance and values individual choices than move to an organisation that is less accommodating.

Some ideas include:

• condensed working weeks
• flexible working hours
• flexible working days
• term-time working
• job sharing
• dog-friendly offices
• study leave
• unpaid (holiday) leave
• time off in lieu / paid overtime
• home working
• secondment
• sabbaticals
• provision of gym, relaxation and quiet facilities in the office.

Useful links

• Overview of flexible work and flexible time options (Flexibility business journal)
• Introduction to job sharing (Business Link)
  
• Factsheet on secondment (CIPD)
• Team building ideas (Business Balls)

Have your say

How does your organisation encourage staff loyalty? Have you ever worked in an organisation where there was a clear sense that the staff did not feel engaged with the organisation?

Talk to others on the Managing staff forum.