The Corporate Wellness Advisor reports that only 45% of US workers feel satisfied with their jobs, down from 52% in 2005 and 61% in 1987. With the highest unemployment rates in a half-century, you’d think the numbers would be going in the opposite direction – people should just be happy they have a job, right?

But it’s not quite that simple. Feeling thankful for employment is not the same thing as feeling satisfied with your work environment and feeling engaged in your work. It’s worthwhile for employers and business owners to regularly assess their work climate, because employee state of mind, happiness, health, and engagement have an enormous impact on productivity and healthcare costs. Since every business is a people business, it pays to improve employee morale and motivation.

Creating a positive work climate that encourages just one $75K/year employee to remain loyal to your company for ten years can save you over $675K in turnover costs. It pays big dividends to have an effective employee retention strategy.

How do you improve retention?

Businesses are wise to regularly explore two avenues to ensure their work environment isn’t squashing people or profits. First, do regular non-attribution work climate surveys to uncover latent personality or work environment difficulties that might be causing stress or lowering productivity. Owners often discover problems they’d otherwise never hear about by giving employees the chance to answer an anonymous survey. People are reluctant to talk to the boss about workplace difficulties, so it’s likely you won’t hear about them until they’re already a problem – unless you ask for anonymous feedback.

Second, be sure your benefits package is up to date and competitive. Everyone offers a solid insurance and EAP plan; you need to go a step beyond in today’s environment to keep your employment costs down while keeping employee motivation high. Consider a vacation wellness plan to help keep your employees healthy, happy, loyal, and low-stress.

Your staff and your bottom line will both thank you for the effort!

We’ve recently done some in-depth analysis of the factors that influence employee turnover, and its cost to businesses. Learn what you might be spending to replace departing employees, and discover how you might influence them to stay on your team – we’ve summarized our research in a short but informative white paper. We hope you find the information useful and helpful.