Staff retention in any business is an important aspect of HR that companies need to get right. High staff turnover rates can lead to low morale and prove expensive with the training needed for new recruits.
But in the digital world in particular right now, there are three key issues when it comes to losing staff.
Digital Experts are Expensive to Replace
For the biggest digital agencies on the planet, hiring new staff is less of an issue as job hunters will actively seek out jobs pages and apply for vacancies.
However, for small to medium sized agencies, trying to recruit a new member of the team to replace one who has left can be a costly business.
The big issue is the speed at which staff need to be retained. Digital projects that agencies work on are set to tight deadlines that clients expect to be met. If a key developer or marketer leaves the company, that work may not be completed.
There are only a few options available to agencies – one is to use recruitment companies to source talent and fill the gap in the workforce. Recruitment agencies can charge high percentages of the prospects salary as their fee, which for some smaller agencies is a cost that cannot be budgeted for.
Other options include posting the vacancy on job boards and on networks like LinkedIn – these again can cost upwards of a few hundred pounds.
High Job to Skilled Worker Ratio
The digital industry has expanded tenfold over the last 5 years, especially in areas such as London and Manchester. The issue then is that there are hundreds of agencies looking for thousands of staff members, yet the number of qualified digital marketers, creatives and web coders leaving university or already in the market looking for new positions remains steady.
This produces a skills vacuum that SME’s struggle to fill, leading to delayed projects or the hiring of freelancers or agency staff which are again very expensive.
Lost Knowledge to Competitors
Just like in the business world, losing staff to key competitors is a huge issue and is a highly relevant one in the world of digital. For a digital marketing agency in particular, experts in SEO and PPC will share their every growing knowledge with their new agencies meaning that potential competitive edges are lost.
How to Keep Digital Staff Motivated
It can be difficult to keep digital staff motivated in the long term. Because of the number of jobs available and the lacking talent to fill them, many employees working in this sector are inundated with job requests from recruiters and other agencies alike.
This means that simply paying larger salaries to keep staff retained may not always be the best solution – it may not even be an affordable one.
The best way to keep digital employees motivated and reduce staff turnover rates is to create a company culture that is positive, forward thinking and social.
Developers, marketers, account managers and creatives need to feel appreciated and see the value that the work is bringing. Positive and frequent interaction with management is also key to assure staff that their efforts are valued and their time would not be better spent elsewhere.
