10 employee retention strategies for 2025
Table of Contents
- Why employee retention matters
- 10 employee retention strategies
- Employee retention FAQs
Industry Salary and Benefit Guides 2025
With organisations across the UK struggling to fill skills gaps, employers are increasingly exploring how they can attract and retain talent. While many focus on the acquisition of new team members, employee retention should also be a key focus, allowing employers to keep their most skilled employees and ensure the smooth running of operations while cutting down on the costs of hiring new staff.
Many companies in the UK are already focused on retaining their staff, with 29% listing it among their top five challenges moving forward, even prioritising it over filling vacancies. Our research shows that for 45% of organisations improving staff retention and engagement is their number one priority when it comes to HR goals.
With staff retention such an important part of organisational success, this article outlines how to retain staff, with some of the best ways to keep your best workers happy and motivated so they don’t add to your staff turnover.
Why employee retention should be a focus for employers
While employee retention should always be a priority for organisations, it often requires considerable time, effort and resources. Let’s take a look at so of the reasons why it’s important for employers to prioritise long-term retention.
1. The costs of turnover: Replacing departing staff can become expensive. From processing the resignation of the leaving staff member to hiring recruiters or paying for job ads to find a replacement, covering the empty position while the candidate is sourced, and inducting the new hire once they are onboard, costs can quickly mount. According to Ballards LLP, employee replacement costs equate to up to 75% of a departed employee’s salary.
2. Staff turnover can snowball: If staff start leaving, this can create a snowball effect and lead to high turnover rates. That’s because as staff depart, more work and responsibilities fall onto the shoulders of the remaining workers. This in turn can increase their levels of work-related stress, potentially leading them to look for other opportunities where they have a fairer workload – and on it goes.
3. Competition for talent: Sourcing and onboarding top candidates can be a difficult task, especially with other organisations looking to do the same. With the UK facing a number of issues when it comes to sourcing talent to fill skills gaps, an organisation that already has the skilled workers it needs in place should see holding on to them as a key priority.
4. Keep things running smoothly: Staff who are settled in and experienced in their roles contribute to smooth and productive work environments, and the institutional knowledge built up by long-standing members of the workforce cannot be quickly or easily replaced. Furthermore, good working and personal relationships between colleagues can also take years to form.
10 employee retention strategies
The importance of holding on to your employees is clear – but how can you retain your employees in the face of competition from other employers? Here are 10 employee retention tactics to consider.
1. Hire the right people
It might seem obvious, but giving an open role to the right candidate in the first place is fundamental to any employee retention strategy. Hiring is a costly exercise, and a bad hire can unsettle the team they join, reduce productivity, and be a drain on financial resources. Ultimately, a bad hire will either leave of their own accord, or your organisation will move them on, and they will then need to be replaced.
By implementing a robust hiring process, you can ensure you’re only bringing in candidates with the right skills who also align with your organisational culture and values. Employers can utilise competency-based interviews to make sure candidates have the right skills to succeed and ensure job advertisements reflect the role accurately so new hires aren’t caught unawares when they start.
Check out our free guide and uncover top tips for conducting candidate interviews.
2. Optimise onboarding
One of the best practices to retain employees is to make sure the onboarding for new hires goes smoothly. Getting new hires off to a good start can have a huge impact on their opinion of an organisation, and it can mean the difference between them settling in for the long haul, or keeping their CV up-to-date in case they spot another opportunity.
Good onboarding processes familiarise new hires with the culture, values, policies and procedures of your organisation, so they can settle in and start getting productive quickly. You might consider assigning them a mentor, in a formal or less formal capacity, to guide them through their first weeks. Where possible, be sure to gather feedback from new hires on the onboarding process so it can be continually improved.
3. Prioritise engagement
Happy and productive employees are engaged employees. This means they feel valued and respected within an organisation, and they believe the work they do is having a real impact and they are a key part of the organisation’s success. HR professionals can create an environment where employees feel engaged by giving them opportunities to participate in decision-making, share their feedback and opinions on how things should be done, and collaborate with leadership.
In the modern workplace, a key part of this is ensuring that employees from all backgrounds are included. Totaljobs research shows that 30% of black and South Asian managers felt they needed to work harder to reach their position than their white counterparts. As a result, employers need to work to make sure every employee feels engaged and valued.
4. Promote a healthy work-life balance
Levels of burnout in the UK workplace are on the rise, and this can have serious implications for staff turnover. To overcome this challenge, employers can support employees and help them avoid burnout by promoting a healthy work-life balance.
One way to provide this balance is to offer flexible working, which can include things like opportunities to work from home and flexible hours. A more flexible schedule can give employees the ability to live their lives while getting their work done in the way that works best for them. Totaljobs research found that this would be particularly helpful to new mothers, 30% of whom say they receive no support when returning to work. Flexible working is the number one type of support parents are calling for, but currently only 31% of mothers have a flexible working arrangement.
Tip: Encourage staff to take regular holidays and breaks to help them stay refreshed and productive, and make sure management leads by example by also taking sufficient time off.
5. Demonstrate a commitment to wellbeing
While work-life balance can go a long way to keeping staff motivated and rested, there are many other ways that employers can enhance the employee experience and demonstrate their commitment to well-being.
For example, employers can offer things like fitness classes and healthy meals in the office, or even mental health support through apps or appointments with trained councillors. All of this can go a long way to keeping employees healthy and happy, and ensuring they feel comfortable seeking help for personal and professional challenges if and when they need it.
6. Offer competitive compensation
If you’re struggling to work out how to improve employee retention at your organisation, one of the most obvious ways is to offer competitive compensation to new and existing employees. This is particularly true if compensation is a subject that comes up regularly in employee exit interviews.
To do this, employers can conduct salary benchmarking and salary reviews to make sure they have a compensation strategy that keeps them competitive in their industry and region. In an era where the rising cost of living is having an impact on large swathes of the working population, being fairly compensated is unsurprisingly near the top of most workers’ agenda. In fact, our research shows that 37% of UK workers are looking to change jobs with salary front of mind.
Ensure your compensation hits the mark with our Salary Trends Report.
7. Invest in development
Many workers want to feel they are developing professionally and personally at work, so employers need to provide opportunities for development. You could offer formal and informal training, while workshops can be used to develop multiple members of staff at the same time.
It’s also worth ensuring that mentoring opportunities are open to all – mentors and mentees will appreciate this. The data backs up the importance of prioritising staff development too. A Deloitte report shows that organisations with a strong learning culture have a 30% to 50% higher rate of staff engagement and retention than others.
8. Reward and recognise success
Nobody likes their hard work to go unnoticed. One good strategy for boosting staff retention is to ensure your workplace has a culture where success is recognised, and rewarded. This can be done in a number of ways, including:
- Public praise for a successful project
- Monetary rewards for hitting or exceeding targets
- Other gifts and rewards for high performance
Ultimately, you want your employees to want to succeed, and to do this you need to create a culture of appreciation and acknowledgment.
9. Ensure transparent communication
In a time of economic turbulence, something workers appreciate is being kept up to date on developments in the workplace. Staff do not like being kept in the dark and having major changes communicated to them as a surprise, so establishing clear and frequent communication with the workforce about changes, goals and expectations is vital.
Staff will often feel more engaged and involved if they can participate in open dialogue with management and have space to voice feedback, concerns and questions they may have.
10. Support career advancement
According to Forbes, 63% of employees who quit their job in recent years did so primarily due to a perceived lack of advancement opportunities. That’s why a key employee retention tactic is to support career advancement within your organisation. Providing opportunities for professional growth through internal promotions, and careful succession planning, gives loyal staff more responsibility and reward as they grow.
It’s important to keep all employees in mind here. One group that often feel they are held back professionally are new mothers, 30% of whom say they receive no support when returning to work. To create a truly supportive culture that encourages employees to pursue career goals and invest in their development, employees with families should be given the extra support and encouragement they need to keep moving forward professionally.
Learn how to retain top talent with clear career development plans.
Employee retention FAQs
What are employee retention strategies and why are they important?
Employee retention strategies are actions and policies designed to keep top talent within an organization. They’re important because they reduce turnover, improve team stability, and save costs associated with recruiting and training new hires.
What are the most effective employee retention strategies?
Top employee retention strategies include offering competitive salaries, clear career progression, flexible working options, strong onboarding processes, regular recognition, and promoting a positive workplace culture.
Why is career development important for employee retention?
Employees are more likely to stay with a company that invests in their growth. Providing learning opportunities, upskilling, and clear progression paths helps individuals see a future with the organisation, reducing the likelihood of them seeking new roles elsewhere.
How does onboarding affect employee retention?
A strong onboarding process sets the tone for a new employee’s experience. It increases engagement, builds confidence, and helps new hires integrate quickly into the organisation, ultimately reducing early turnover.
What role does employee recognition play in retention strategies?
Recognising and rewarding employees for their contributions boosts morale, engagement, and loyalty. Regular and meaningful recognition (both formal and informal) is essential in any retention strategy.
How do you measure the success of employee retention strategies?
Success can be measured through metrics like turnover rates, employee satisfaction surveys, retention rates by department, and the average tenure of staff. Regular review of these metrics helps refine strategies over time.
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