Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Employee engagementHR strategy

What makes people stay in their jobs

by Personnel Today 2 Nov 2009
by Personnel Today 2 Nov 2009

What encourages employees to stay at their workplace? What keeps them productive and engaged, even on a bad day? What gives your company that wow factor that helps retain employees and prevent them from considering job opportunities elsewhere? Despite the relatively inactive recruitment market, employers are still struggling with this issue. Keeping people motivated is still just as important as ever; organisations with an engaged workforce will be better prepared for the upturn and are likely to recover from the recession faster.

The difficulty is that different factors motivate different people. Some employees are purely motivated by pay, while others prefer a stress-free environment. Some employees value outdoor work, while others are happier behind a PC. With such a variety of individual personal motivators, it’s difficult to create a solution that has an impact across the whole workforce.

Data from The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For 2009 lists, reveals some key common factors that can be used to help drive up engagement among staff, and keep them actively involved in keeping the business on track. Our research highlights a clear correlation between those who say they are keen to leave their current job if another one was available and a number of other areas.

This analysis shows that employees who are least bored or disconnected at work report a suitable degree of variation in their day-to-day work, and they report the feeling that they can grow, either within their current role or leading up to another role. Having a varied role and the chance to learn new things helps keep staff motivated and interested in their jobs.

Another critical factor revealed by the data is ensuring employees continue to feel fully involved in the organisation; whether this be through senior leaders seeking the opinion of employees when decision-making, or the CEO keeping staff regularly updated with what’s happening at board level. Fostering a sense of involvement, and demonstrating to employees that their work is really making a difference to the organisation creates a clear sense of participation and engagement.

The results also show that confidence in the leadership is an important factor in retention. A highly visible group of senior leaders increases an employee’s confidence in the business, further increasing their involvement with the organisation and a better understanding of its direction and goals.

Clearly then, while every employee has his or her private preferences for their work, there are some common factors that senior leaders and managers can do to help keep staff engaged, and therefore productive. Even when times are tough.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Do you know how your employees are feeling, are they stimulated, involved and have confidence in leadership? Enter the Best Companies Accreditation and/or Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For to find out.


 

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Know how to get value from psychometric tests
next post
Working Time Solutions expands into real time data capture

You may also like

How neuroscience can unlock employee recognition

22 May 2025

University of Salford launches Better Working Lives cluster

14 May 2025

Why HR burnout is a strategic issue

12 May 2025

Why fighting the DEI backlash is about PR...

9 May 2025

Preparing for a new era of workforce planning...

8 May 2025

Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar)

8 May 2025

Succession planning now ‘more of a priority than...

24 Apr 2025

Four ways HR can maintain trust in uncertain...

23 Apr 2025

Remote working may have triggered jump in employee...

17 Apr 2025

High performance is not the preserve of ‘superstar’...

3 Apr 2025

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+