It can take months or even years to recover from losing a key team member.

Employee turnover is always a stressful situation. For many businesses it can take months or even years to recover from losing a key team member, especially if you struggle with hiring and onboarding employees. So the best way to protect your business is to take steps now to increase employee retention and avoid having tofind a replacement in the first place. Here are my four tips to increasing employee retention for your small to medium sized business.

Acknowledge The Talent That You Have on Your Team

Finding good talent is a lot of work, and if you have someone who is really good at what they do, and you have invested time and attention in coaching them and helping them grow in their position, don't fool yourself into thinking that you are the only one that knows what you have. Recruiters, competitors and other businesses have been watching from the sidelines ready to swoop in when the timing is right. Their LinkedIn inbox is just a click away, and chances are they are getting emails daily asking them to change teams. So, the first step to keeping your team together is to recognize the star players within your ranks.

Encourage Them To Celebrate Their Progress

Once you have identified the start players on your team, it's time to get serious about celebrating and recognizing their victories and talents. If you have this already embedded into your company culture, you are already light years ahead of your peers, but if you find yourself chasing the next sale or goal and not acknowledging the hard work that went into getting there - you may want to re-think your approach. Taking the time to really feel our successes, goes a long way to helping someone feel fulfilled and appreciated in their role. So celebrate often!

Praise Them In Front Of Their Peers

Did your sales manager crush this quarter's sales goal? Did your operations manager find a way to cut your operating budget and save your company a lot of money? Did a customer service representative resolve an irate customer's issue, and sell them an upgrade? Celebrate! And tell the rest of the team about their victory. Take time each week to publicly praise your team in front of their peers for a job well done. This will help not only motivate the rest of the team to do their best work, but will also help the team feel valued and appreciated.

Say "No" to the Qualifiers

The last tip that I have to help increase employee retention has to do with the use of qualifiers. "Our sales were up by 25% this quarter.....but our competitor did go out of business and we took a lot of their existing customers." or "We were able to overhaul our website this quarter and keep things under budget but...." As a leader, it is your job to put a stop to the use of qualifiers when celebrating victories. It is just a small thing that most people do out of habit, but can really undermine the success of your team as a whole and leave them wanting more. So, be proud of your growth and your success and say no to the qualifiers.

Inc