Increasing Employee Retention While Also Helping Them Thrive

Helping your employees advance through relationship building, new opportunities, recognition, and appreciation can help you ke...

January 20, 2020
Press the button to generate random icebreaker questions.
There are 300 more icebreaker questions at the bottom of the article
How would you describe your job to a five year old?
What season would you be?
What is a weird food you have tried? Would you eat it again?
What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Would you go in the mother-ship with aliens if they landed on Earth tomorrow?
What is your favorite season?
Do prefer working from home or the office?
What is your earliest memory of this job?
What is the best thing you have bought so far this year?
What is the earliest book you remember?
If you had to move to another country, which one would you choose?
You are the best criminal mastermind in the world. What crime would you commit if you knew you would get away with it?
What is your favorite movie genre to watch?
What was the last thing you ate?
What person from history would you add to Mount Rushmore?
What is a weird fact you know?
What is your favorite part of working from home?
Were the Spice Girls a good team?
Imagine you can instantly learn any language. Which would you choose?
If you could live in any state, which state would you pick?
Which fictional team is the best team of all time?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What do you usually eat for a quick lunch?
What simple food will you never eat?
Show us the weirdest thing you have in the room with you right now.
Would you rather stay at a hotel or an AirBNB?
What is your favorite movie genre to watch?
Are you more productive in the morning or at night?
Who is someone in your community that makes a difference?
Who was your most unique pet?
Choose one famous person from history you want on your team during a zombie apocalypse.
What is a good way to give back to the community?
Which song could you listen to over and over again?
Is Hugh Grant funny?
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?
Would you want to have an imaginary friend today? Did you have one as a child?
What actor or actress would you want to play you in the movie about your life?
What is the best super power?
What is your New Years resolution?
You can only eat one food again for the rest of your life. What is it?
What is the best work holiday?
What is the first gift you remember receiving?
Would you rather join Metallica or Backstreet Boys?
What is the best example of a community you have seen?
What is an easy way to do something nice for someone?
Show us your phone background and tell the story behind why you picked this image.
What was your first job?
Pick any band to play at your funeral.
If you could have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Which superpower would you give to your arch enemy?
What is the most obscure superpower you would want?
What emoji best describes how you are feeling right now?
If you could live in any country, which country would you pick?
Would you rather live in a city or a town?
What is your favorite holiday?
What is something you accomplished as part of a team?
What is your standard office lunch?
What is your most used phone app?
What is your favorite season?
Have you ever won something as a team?
Imagine you are a professional baseball player. What is your introduction song?
Beach holiday or ski trip?
Have you ever been to a funny comedy show?
Would you rather live at the North Pole or the South Pole?
What is your favorite song to sing?
If you could live in any state, which state would you pick?
Imagine you could teleport anywhere. Where would you go right now?
What is the most unusual job you have heard of?
What was the last thing you ate?
You can visit any fictional time or place. Which would you pick?
What do your family and friends think you do all day?
What movie do you wish you could watch again for the first time?
Show us your most-used emoji.
What was the most unique style or fashion trend you ever embraced?
What movie defined your generation?
You are stranded on a remote desert island. Are you alone or with your worst enemy?
What is your favorite knock-knock joke?
Have you ever told someone Santa is not real?
Do you know how to speak more than one language?
On a scale of 1 – 10, how much of a team player are you?
What is your #1 recommendation in this city?
What is your favorite holiday?
What bucket list item do you most want to check off in the next six months?
What is your favorite mythical creature?
What was the first way you made money?
If you could be great at any Olympic sport, which would it be?
Which song could you listen to over and over again?
When did you start liking/hating mushrooms?
Where is your favorite vacation spot?
Do you take your PTO all at one time, or another way?
Which show do you remember most from your childhood?
Which beverage goes best with pizza?
Would you want to have a personal assistant follow you around everywhere and do what you asked of them?
Have you ever met your idol?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Would you rather live 100 years in the past or 100 years in the future?
What is your hobby?
When you are alone in the car, what volume is the music at?
Imagine you no longer have to work. How would you spend a Tuesday?
What is your favorite type of sandwich?

As an HR professional, you want your business to succeed. One major key to this is employee retention because you invest time and money into recruitment and the less time and money you spend recruiting, the more you can dedicate to your business and your employees’ success. Helping your employees advance through relationship building, new opportunities, recognition, and appreciation can help you keep your employees while making them feel valued. Five ways to increase employee retention include:

  1. Help Your Employees Build Relationships: Coworkers don’t have to be best friends, but matching up employees with a mentor or just another teammate can help them learn how to build relationships that will be important in their future endeavors. Most jobs require working together with others, so knowing how to network and interact with others is critical. The common question HR professionals have is “How do you show appreciation to colleagues?” Of course, a simple “nice work” email or in-person conversation is useful, but there are many other ways to do this, too.

    Another way is to encourage your employees to give each other recognition during meetings. Giving each other “shout outs” can help employees bond as well as learn what each person’s strong suits are. For example, if one employee is good at Microsoft Excel, getting public recognition for that will let other employees know who they can rely on if they need help with Microsoft Excel. This builds trust, which is a foundation of being able to work together.

    Also, with Assembly’s technology, your team can provide one another with encouragement that can help your business thrive.
  2. Show Employees You Want Them to Advance Their Careers: Employees don’t want to feel “stuck” in their job and like they have “nowhere to go.” Employees who feel like this are not inclined to stay and may look for another company that provides employees with new opportunities.

    Allowing “shadowing” and encouraging classes and conferences enables employees to learn new skills that can help them join a different sector. You can encourage your employees to experience other sectors and jobs within your company that they may decide they want to transfer to.

    Promoting and hiring from within can also benefit you, as employees already know your company’s business processes, culture, and people, which can save you a lot of money by eliminating the need for extensive training and initiation.
  3. Let Your Employees Know They are Valued: Most people like to feel needed and the sense that the work they do is important, so employee appreciation is something all HR professionals should think about.

    Appreciating your employees can help them feel valued, and when they feel valued, they are more likely to work hard to earn promotions and chances to advance professionally.

    Take some time to think critically and answer the question “What does employee appreciation mean to you?” before devising a plan to show your employees that you care and are appreciative of what they do for your business every day.
  4. Provide Incentives that Will Keep Them Coming Back to Work: Incentives don’t always have to equate to money, so what is the difference between reward and recognition and what are some good incentives for employees? Recognizing employees for their efforts is much different than rewarding them with financial bonuses, although that helps, too.

    Good incentives include benefits such as decent insurance and paid time off because they boost morale and promote your employees’ well-being. If the budget allows it, hosting things like catered lunches, dinners out, or office parties with door prizes can create a fun environment and help your employees relax.
  5. Create an Excellent Corporate Culture: Overall, HR leaders should always be looking for ways to improve their business’s culture so that employees will remain happy and enjoy their jobs. It's well known and researched that “toxic” company culture can have very detrimental consequences, so actually sitting down and formulating a plan to encourage teamwork and advancement is worth the time it takes.

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Employee recognition guide