How to keep hold of your staff

Labour turnover is at record levels. In the hospitality industry one in two people leave their jobs every year, and in the licensed trade the figure is even higher. A quarter of leavers have been in their job for fewer than six months. The situation is estimated to be costing the hospitality industry at least £430m a year.

So what can you do to improve the situation within your company? To start with, you could follow our 10 top tips for improving people retention:

1. Become the place to be
People want to be associated with success. Constantly promote how great your company is internally and externally. Shout about your successes and make every single person you employ an ambassador for your organisation by giving them the key messages to pass on. Manage any image issues. Make them want to stay.

2. Communicate
Find a way to make sure real communication happens. Make the flow of information fast, frequent and two-way.

3. Recruit professionally
Make sure you have recruitment USPs (unique selling points). Make applying for a job with you as straightforward as possible. Train your recruiters - not only to recruit professionally and competently but to be salespeople for your company. Train them to spot talent and recruit people with the right skills and attributes who will help you to move the business forward. Recruit fast - if you don't, someone else will. Encourage some calculated risk-taking with internal promotion - people often grow into a role. Network - go where the talent goes.

4. Have vision Be clear about what your company's vision and values are. Make sure everyone in your company knows what they are. Discover the values of prospective key employees - they have to match with those of the company.

5. Be flexible
Discover what your people want and do your best to give it to them. People will trade excitement for flexibility or money for excitement - it's all about what motivates them. Review employment practice with a view to work-life balance. You may need to train existing people to understand and support this.

6. Be supportive You can't have loyalty unless you are loyal in return. Take care of people in trouble - it's a strong message. This isn't about "going soft", it's a commercial business decision. Give the same level of commitment you expect to receive back. Match future stars with existing ones via a "buddying" system or create "support networks".

7. Manage aspirations
Regularly review progress and find out what the aspirations of your employees are. If it suits the business, ensure they are fulfilled. Be aware that not all talent wants promotion - find out what they do want. Change is rapid, so review the situation frequently. Use succession and business planning techniques to identify what new positions are likely to be created in the future and who is aspiring, ready to do the job, overdue for a move, at risk of leaving or should be managed out.

8. Develop your team
Make development accessible, make it appropriate, make it timely. Make it flexible to fit the business and the individual. Consider using personal coaching for executives or top members of the team. Make sure agreed development happens within the agreed timescale.

9. Stay informed
Know about your people. Know about other people. What are the trends, influences, what's the focus? Understand the issues. Find out why people stay and why they leave. Where does talent come from and where does it go? Keep a close eye on those businesses that are competing with you for talent. Know who they are and what they are offering.

10. Leadership
Talent flocks to a great leader. Engage the superstars through inspirational leadership. Make sure that the top team members take time out to regularly think about the people. This is a broad issue, which needs input at board level. Put people issues at the top of the agenda. Encourage creative thinking.

Produced by Caterer.com in association with learnpurple