It’s no secret that, while incredibly rewarding, nonprofit work can take a toll on professionals in the sector. Between securing new donors, managing volunteers, running programs, and planning fundraising events, nonprofit work can feel overwhelming. This is especially true for case workers and other nonprofit professionals who guide beneficiaries and clients through traumatic situations.

 

Burnout leads to staff turnover, which can greatly cost nonprofits. For example, healthcare organizations alone lose a staggering $4.6 billion annually due to turnover and work-hour reductions. 

 

However, the good news is that you can mitigate and prevent burnout by instituting changes on organization-wide and personal scales. In this guide, we’ll review how your nonprofit can combat burnout so you have a passionate and loyal team by your side to achieve your mission. 

1. Implement a Work From Home Policy

If you’ve handled nonprofit recruitment before, you understand just how important benefits are for keeping employees engaged and motivated. One of the most popular benefits is a flexible work-from-home schedule, as 65% of workers want to work completely remotely, whereas 32% want a hybrid schedule.

 

Allowing your employees to work from home can combat burnout by:

• Reducing daily commute stress. Whether they are paying for a bus ticket every day or sitting in traffic in their cars, commuting to and from work can be time-consuming, making it an additional stressor in your employees’ lives. With remote work, your employees will have more time for activities that energize them outside of work hours.

• Providing a comfortable environment to work in. Every employee operates differently and has unique working preferences. Allowing them to customize their workspace can boost their productivity and reduce fatigue.

• Encouraging self-paced work. Remote work complements the “flex” hours structure (in which employees can reallocate hours when they’re busy as long as they meet deadlines). Self-paced, flexible work structures empower employees to create a schedule that keeps them productive.

 

If your nonprofit values in-person collaboration but still wants the benefits of remote work, consider adopting a hybrid policy, where team members spend some days in office and some working remotely. This allows your employees to experience the best of both work formats, contributing to their satisfaction and engagement with your organization.  

2. Hire Smart

Gauging nonprofit-specific skills is undoubtedly one of your recruiting priorities, but you can expand your talent acquisition strategy to prevent burnout proactively. Here are some indicators of potential hires’ ability to fend off burnout and persevere through challenges:

• Persistence in past roles. Understanding how candidates approached stressful or difficult situations in the past can provide insights into their strengths and how they’ll tackle issues that lead to burnout.

• Time management skills. Keeping track of deadlines and completing work on time is crucial for remaining an effective contributor to your team. 

• Personal support system and hobbies. If your candidate has activities and a support system outside of work, they have more resources and activities to energize them when work gets challenging. 

• Enthusiasm for your mission. Innate enthusiasm for your cause can motivate employees to persist through difficult times. 

 

It’s easier to judge some of these characteristics than others, but between an interview, short answer prompts, and skill assessments, you get a general idea of where a candidate stands on all these fronts. Plus, discussing aspects of their lives that aren’t directly work-related can relax candidates throughout the high-stakes recruitment process.

3. Provide Self-Care Resources

As its name suggests, self-care varies for each person based on what recharges and inspires them. Nonprofits can take the initiative to offer self-care resources to their employees to combat burnout, but since every employee is different, it can be challenging to establish standard offerings. Here are some ideas for universally beneficial self-care resources that your employees will likely enjoy:  

• Access to mental health services. Providing health insurance with adequate coverage for mental health treatment empowers your employees to seek professional support if they need it.

• Physical wellness programs. Research shows that exercising regularly and eating healthy foods can lift your mood. Provide discounted gym memberships or gift cards to grocery stores so employees can support their health without breaking the bank.

• Stress relief items. Whether it’s a stress ball, succulent, pair of fuzzy socks, or scented candles, providing low-cost items that help employees unwind can greatly impact their mood and work ethic. You could even ask sponsors if they have any resources they could donate to mitigate costs. For example, a local massage business may be willing to offer you discounted services.

 

If you want to offer more personalized self-care resources, there’s no group better to ask than your staff itself. Ask them for suggestions on what you should offer, how you can acquire it, and which providers are ideal.

4. Organize Fun Events

Your staff sees each other more often than they see some of their family members, so it’s natural for you to build strong relationships with them. Strengthening these bonds is crucial for cultivating internal support systems and making all employees feel comfortable. That’s where planning events becomes useful.

 

Planning enjoyable staff events (both during and outside of work) helps employees feel fulfilled and makes them more likely to stick with your nonprofit in the long term. Plus, it allows them to blow off steam and get to know their coworkers on a personal level. 

 

Here are some event ideas to inspire you:

As Part of Work

• New hire luncheon. Starting a new job can be overwhelming, both for new hires and for staff training them. Integrate new hires into your workplace culture by catering lunch on their first day. This establishes a welcoming atmosphere, which is crucial for setting new hires up for success. 

• “Bring your Pet to Work” day. For many people, there’s nothing that brings a smile to the face faster than a cute animal! Bringing furry friends to work is a great way to make everyone happy. Just be sure you ask everyone for permission and be transparent about what types of pets will be attending in case certain employees have allergies. 

• Early flex-out activity days. Designate one day per month where employees who finished their tasks can end work early to join a group activity, such as an ice cream social or a pickleball game. That way, your employees don’t have to move around their schedules to connect with coworkers.

Outside of Work

• Team spa day. Spa days are synonymous with luxury and relaxation. Treat your employees to a trip to your local spa where they can get a hot rock treatment, an aromatherapy session, or a face mask. Since this idea tends to be pricier, it works especially well as a prize for hitting quarterly or yearly fundraising goals.

• Cultural day out. Whether you attend an orchestral concert, enjoy a theater production, or peruse the galleries of an art museum, treat your employees to all of the cultural activities your city has to offer. 

• Laid-back game night. This classic event can appeal to all of your staff’s preferences. For instance, you might focus on playing board games or taking turns with a video game. Whatever you decide, your staff will love the opportunity to get to know each other and engage in friendly competition.

 

Your organization’s busy decision-makers might not have the bandwidth to plan these events regularly. However, you can empower all staff members to plan events with a set budget. This allows staff to plan events people want to attend while keeping planning responsibilities dispersed.

5. Encourage Taking Time Off

Just because you offer paid time off (PTO) doesn’t mean team members will jump at the chance to use it. Your employees (especially new hires) might feel pressured to keep working to make a good first impression. That’s why it’s important to actively encourage taking time off. Here are some tips for getting employees to use their PTO allowance:

 

• • Offer different PTO buckets. Your employees hesitate to use paid time off when they feel sick. Solve this dilemma by offering multiple categories of PTO that employees can draw from. For instance, many companies offer sick time and PTO as separate categories.
  • Openly promote taking time off. Your employees can’t read your mind (especially new employees), so be transparent with them. Double the Donation suggests highlighting the nonprofit’s approval of using PTO outwardly during training so employees don’t feel pressured to hold onto their time off.

• Allow new employees to have a negative PTO balance. For nonprofits where PTO is accrued in regular increments over time, it takes more time for new employees to have days banked. Allow employees to go into the negative for the first year of employment so they get the same amount of time off as seasoned employees.

 

Remember to adjust your paid time off strategies as needed depending on competitor and market trends. For instance, you might implement a floating holiday policy where employees can take personally significant days off, such as birthdays or cultural celebrations, without affecting their PTO balance.

Unfortunately, there are some contributors to burnout that we can’t foresee or prevent, like a recession. That’s why your nonprofit must be flexible to combat burnout effectively. Be prepared to provide one-on-one support when unexpected events affect your employees. Also, collect feedback from your employees regularly so you can continue serving them as well as possible and establish a working environment they’re happy to be in.

Tips for Retaining Nonprofit Employees

Nonprofit executive directors and hiring managers have notoriously over-packed schedules and to-do lists, so if you’re blissfully relieved to cross off your “fill x role” task once a candidate has accepted your job offer, it’s certainly understandable. However, it’s wise to think of that box as being temporarily checked—and to implement strategies to ensure it stays that way for as long as possible. For many reasons, employee retention should be just as integral to pursuing your mission as fundraising and providing core services are.

 

As of 2022, the average turnover for nonprofit organizations was approximately 19%, whereas the average all-industry turnover rate was 12%. If you’d like to improve your organization’s statistics, but the prospect of designing a comprehensive employee retention plan sounds more overwhelming than organizing your next major fundraiser, don’t worry. Employee retention strategies can be simple, budget-friendly, and fine-tuned over time. In fact, they’re not unlike the practices you already have in place for retaining donors.

 

If your donors provide the fuel your organization runs on, then your employees are your engine, wheels, and everything in between (your drivetrain, to be exact). We all know that extending the life and quality of your vehicle requires regular tune-ups, repairs, and general TLC. Here’s how to take optimal care of the most valuable (and expensive) parts of your vehicle: your staff. 

How To Retain Employees—The Smart Way

 

 

 

Start by Addressing the Greatest Risks

Although you will ultimately want to tailor your retention strategies to your organization’s specific concerns, it can be helpful to start with a high-level view of the factors behind national nonprofit employee retention rate and turnover statistics. The single greatest reason for voluntary turnover is lack of opportunity for growth at 59.7%, inadequate compensation and benefits is second at 47.6%, and discomfort or dissatisfaction with an organization or its culture is third at 26.2%. 

 

Consider prioritizing these areas first as you work through your retention plan, but use your own information-gathering strategies to prevent or address other potential pain points. Exit interviews can certainly be a useful tool in this regard, but in a more preventive sense, it’s a good idea to solicit feedback in the form of anonymous surveys, routine “check-ins,” and other communication tools. But once you’ve determined your areas to address, what are the best ways to, well, address them?

Make Your Employees Feel Valued Where It Counts

In many ways, designing an effective employee retention plan boils down to tried-and-true methods of making your employees feel valued. You already have a system for keeping your donors coming back, and you can deploy a similar one for your workers. Here are some ways to address the biggest risk factors for turnover.

 

Create Pathways for Growth (Vertical and Lateral)

Given that nonprofits have a reputation for doing more with less, there’s no such thing as a redundant or superfluous employee. But you can’t expect to hold onto people skilled at running in a variety of gears if your workers feel like they’ve hit a career cul-de-sac. Even if you can’t offer them a promotion (vertical growth) in the near future, you can still make sure they’re learning and growing in their existing roles (lateral growth). Here are a few ways you can offer opportunities for career development:

 

• Promote staff internally where possible
• Provide professional development and training opportunities
• Offer challenges and “stretch” assignments
• Provide mentorship
• Send employees to industry events (like conferences and workshops)
• Pay for field-relevant certifications

 

Maximize Compensation and Benefits (Get Creative!)

It’s important to offer your employees a competitive salary and benefits package, since this is the second most-cited reason for voluntary turnover. Don’t let a tight budget be a roadblock, however: smaller tangible and significant intangible benefits can go a long way toward making your organization a truly desirable place to work. Here are some ways to show your workers that you’re committed to their welfare:

 

• Review your budget for ways to increase compensation and traditional benefits; remember to calculate your turnover costs and keep these in mind as you weigh your options
• Consider cost-of-living adjustments in pay
• If your organization can’t afford pay increases right now, offer commissions or bonuses instead
• Increase paid sick, family, or holiday leave allowances
• Ease work/life “pain points” by offering things like on-site childcare, a flexible work schedule (in person or from home), public transit passes, or stipends to help cover other personal or work-related expenses

 

Promote a Healthy Work Culture

Good company culture doesn’t happen by accident, nor will it thrive with good intentions that are haphazardly applied. Since your workplace culture directly affects how your employees feel about working for your organization, it’s essential to cultivate one in a deliberate and thoughtful way. Think about ways not only to prevent interpersonal conflicts, but to help employees feel comfortable, trusted, valued, and engaged as a team—and in all things, be consistent. Here are a few ways to do this:

 

• Develop, communicate, and demonstrate your organization’s core values (“walk the walk”)
• Be transparent with employees about organization goals, policies, decisions, and budget
• Solicit feedback often; include workers in major and minor decision-making whenever possible
• Champion equity and inclusiveness
• Have a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, harassment, and other toxic or criminal workplace behavior

 

Other Ways To Prevent Turnover

If you have open lines of communication in your organization that your employees feel comfortable using, you’ll be alerted to other potential turnover risk factors, and you can get ahead of them before they escalate. Here are some simple, low-cost ideas: 

 

• Provide recognition and let staff know when their hard work has had a concrete positive impact on your organization
• Get to know your employees as individuals
• Make time for fun and feel-good activities (e.g. happy hours, lunches, movie screenings, contests, etc. based on shared team preferences rather than arbitrary top-down ideas)
• Find ways to promote work/life balance in deed, not just in lip service
• Facilitate opportunities for interpersonal and team bonding

 

You can’t prevent all turnover, of course, voluntary or otherwise, but you can certainly reduce it by implementing thoughtful strategies for employee retention. When you do this, you’ll accomplish much more than simply keeping your best people for longer. You’ll increase loyalty and productivity, reach more goals, enjoy more growth, and create an enjoyable work environment. 

As the word gets out that your organization is a great place to work, you can attract (and keep!) more top-notch talent, ensuring the engine of your nonprofit is firing on all cylinders. After all, who doesn’t want an upgraded ride?

Want more tips like these? Get them here.

Positive EOY staff morale + Strong organization leadership = New Year Success

Let’s face it, the last few months of 2022 are a vital time for organizations! You’re trying to reach new goals, set new initiatives, and plan for the incoming year. During this planning, your staff can feel burned out. Consider your staff’s workload, scrambling to make year-end goals, and let’s not forget: their personal lives going into the holiday season.

Don’t fret; we’ll be going through some initiatives to take to stay productive and refocus for a New Year.

How to Stay Productive

Throw a Holiday Party

It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It just needs to be fun. Throw a party that your staff will look forward to. Long work days are a little more bearable when a party is on the horizon. You can host a luncheon during office hours or have your party at a restaurant on a Friday night so your employees can bring their spouses. Either way, make it special. Decide on a couple of games or maybe even a white elephant gift exchange. Whatever you do, make it worth the hard work they put in all year.

Plan Out Holiday Social Media Campaigns

Social media can be fun for your target audience as well as your employees. Have them brainstorm a special giveaway or a fundraising campaign. Be sure to make it holiday-themed to keep your staff and audience interested. If you struggle to keep your social media channels active, scheduling out your posts in advance can help you stay on track.

Maybe you can partner up with a local coffee shop or restaurant and give away a coupon or gift card to anyone who comments on a photo or likes a post on Facebook. You could also have your donors match the number of likes a certain post gets by the time New Year’s Day comes. Have your employees run with the idea and let them have a good time with it. It’s something that’s a little different and special during the holiday season, but it still maintains productivity.

Show appreciation

Your staff works hard all year, so be sure to recognize them. Hand-write thank you notes with a gift card inside or offer a Christmas bonus. If you can’t afford to be financially generous, that’s okay. Just let them know they are appreciated. It will keep them motivated to do their best when they’re feeling burnt out. Expressing gratitude for your support network is a priority, bump it to the top of your list. If you know this is a priority but seems like a daunting task, get creative. Gratitude can be displayed in several ways and there are plenty of tools that can help including automations and integrations that build deeper, more personal relationships with your donors, staff, and support network.

Set goals

Set some end-of-the-year goals for yourself, your organization, and your staff. Having one common goal to work toward will keep you and your staff productive as the year draws to a close. Make the goal visible in your office so everyone can see it and be reminded of why they do what they do.

Give them a reason to be productive

Make sure your organization is having some small successes along the way. Try partnering up with a for-profit organization. Maybe for every $20 made, a for-profit company will donate a percentage to your organization, or something similar. Don’t worry about burdening the company. They have the resources to carry out orders and produce merchandise, even though this is their busy time of year, too. 20 percent of annual retail sales occur between November and December, so your organization might benefit from that.

When your staff sees that your organization is doing well and making a difference, they will be on board and ready to work until the holiday comes.

Work with them

It’s difficult to come to a balance between working your employees hard until the holidays come and letting the lack of motivation get the better of them. Stay somewhere in the middle, though. Be sure to allow the time off they need, but ensure you are staffed enough to continue their work. Understand their busy schedules and stressful lives, and they will appreciate you more.

Most of all, make sure you get the rest you need this holiday season, too, while preparing for the busy year to come.

Refocus for a New Year

Don’t Drop the Ball

Let’s fast forward, congratulations on your successful end-of-year fundraising campaign! After all the hard work put into the final fundraising push of the year, you deserve the extra plate at Christmas dinner and the extra drink (or drinks) on New Year’s Eve—cheers. But now that the year is over and the ball has dropped, it’s time to make sure you’re not dropping the ball. Here are a few things you can focus on in the first few months of the new year to ensure success for your nonprofit.

Follow up

Just because your holiday giving campaign ended doesn’t mean its success has to be stuck in the past too. Use the leftover momentum to start the year off on the right foot.

Start by following up with new donors who showed interest during your campaign. Obviously, thank-yous are a must—your donors will love ’em and your mom will be proud—but consider some other ways to follow up too. For example, you could send a short survey to donors. Ask them why they donated and what other causes they support, and don’t be afraid to ask a question to get some more specific information that will help you improve your future fundraising efforts. If you rely on volunteers, ask these new donors if they want to get a little more hands-on and take things to the next level by joining your team of volunteers.

Wrap it Up

Have some fun in documenting the memories, performance, and achievements from the previous year. An annual report is a common publication of nonprofit organizations, an annual report should be a distinct piece of your communications and marketing assets. Since annual reports are big projects, it’s okay to expect more of this signature piece. This signature piece should provide clarity and accountability, inspire conversation, honor supporters, give readers something easy to remember and hard to forget, and showcases your nonprofit in all it’s glory. So get out there and show off a bit. Wrap up your previous year in a beautiful annual report.

Don’t get overwhelmed. An annual report is a complex beast of a project…or is it? A lot of meetings, stress, and far too many words are often put into these temporary snapshots of a nonprofit’s work. This guide breaks down these reports into an easy-to-follow outline while using the “5 W’s”: Who, What, When, Where, and Why.

Plan for next year

I’m sure the last thing you want to do in January is a plan for November and December. But the sooner you get in the film room and review the game tape, so to speak, the fresher it will be in your mind once the game day arrives. Take some time to identify your nonprofit’s successes and shortcomings you noticed during the holiday giving season and put pen to paper.

Don’t overthink it. Start with some open-ended ideas on what went well and what can be improved and thank yourself later because these notes will be helpful when the time comes to start planning. Be sure to get the final donor numbers down in writing and compare them to your expectations and previous years’ efforts.

Fight the post-holiday slowdown

The way to combat this is to do a great job of telling your story and pushing your brand to its constituents. Use social media to tell people what you’re up to. Put together some numbers that illustrate your successes during the last calendar year and make them available to your stakeholders and the community – show people where their donations went and how they helped. Use any interview requests or press opportunities to further your organization’s narrative. If journalists aren’t knocking down your door, go to them by pitching your story ideas to the media and posting unique and relevant blog posts. As always, the more you’re in front of your constituents and your community, the better. Putting even more focus on fundraising now will go a long way in preventing a slowdown in contributions later.

When a sports team ends its season, they get an off-season; time to recover, and a chance to reflect on the past year before starting again. But do you think those athletes are propped up on a beach with a cold one in hand the entire time? They’re using that time to hone their craft and improve themselves, they’re in the gym and the film room, doing whatever it takes to be better than the competition. And don’t kid yourself, you have several worthy competitors of your own in your community for a donor or volunteer to consider working with. There’s no offseason for nonprofit professionals. We have to reflect on past efforts and plan for the future while continually putting our best foot forward each and every day. 

About the Authors: Kayla Matthews and Randy Hawthorne. As the former Executive Director and Editor for Nonprofit Hub and a Professional Certified Marketer, Randy shares his passions of marketing and education with nonprofits to help them implement marketing and organizational leadership principles so they can grow their organizations. Randy lends his marketing and organizational leadership expertise to a number of nonprofits in his community. Outside the office, Randy works with high school and college students and mentors young professionals to develop their leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

Originally published 12.28.15—Updated 11.17.22

The most valuable asset available to any nonprofit organization is the people behind it. We’ll say it even more specifically: the most valuable asset available to any nonprofit organization is its employees. They are the main resource that helps a nonprofit meet the need and fully realize its mission. This resource is especially vital when we recognize that many organizations are small in scale and highly labor intensive. 

With the critical impact that employees have on meeting our missions, it would only seem natural that specific retention strategies would underpin the human resource practices of the nonprofit sector. It’s very easy to find a salary comparison to see what the average salary is for your positions, but not everyone pays attention. Yet surprisingly, a recent survey completed by Nonprofit HR (2021) showed that 80% of over 500 responding organizations admitted that they don’t have formal retention strategies in place. The absence of these strategies shows up in several negative outcomes, for both the organization’s sustainability and the sector as a whole. But having them place makes a positive impact—and we’ll explore how you can get started.

How Lacking a Retention Strategy Impacts an Organization

The first concerning outcome of a lack of retention strategy shows up at the organizational level. Ineffective or nonexistent retention practices directly fuels high employee turnover. An organization without formal retention principles has a higher likelihood of employees leaving the company, which inherently creates a heavy cost to the organization. The cost to replace an employee is estimated at 20% of the exiting employee’s salary. However, it’s worth noting that these costs increase with positions requiring a more specific skill set, such as those at the director or executive level. Plus, these replacement costs can extend far beyond the hire date considering the time for a new employee to grow to full effectiveness. 

These replacement costs can be grouped into two primary types: direct and indirect. Items such as severance pay for resigning employees, background verifications, and on-the-job training for new hires fall within the direct cost category. Indirect costs refer to financial impact resulting from lower levels of productivity, costs incurred by new employees as they learn the job, and the loss of institutional knowledge. Additional indirect costs may feel even more familiar than these: the impact of staff shortages on remaining team members is difficult to measure but often presents challenges regarding work-life balance, increased responsibilities, and the general stress incurred from being short-handed.

To put this into focus: a 2018 research study revealed that the average nonprofit employee stays with an organization for 2-5 years. This rapid turn-over rate leaves organizations in a near-constant state of replacing and retraining staff members, incurring ongoing direct and indirect costs. Offering some comfort, however, is the fact that those who stay beyond the 5 year mark typically stay longer than the typical for-profit employee.

Impact on the Sector: Invisible Career Paths & Sector-Switching

At the sector level, we see a ripple effect when there is a lack of specific and effective retention strategies in individual nonprofits. This shows up in two related (but distinct) outcomes: “invisibility” of nonprofit career paths and sector switching. Both show how professional advancement in the nonprofit sector is impacted by a lack of retention strategies. 

When we think about professional advancement in any field, we usually understand this to mean that an employee follows a career path that’s made up of a variety of work-related activities that occur over time. All of these then culminate in the ability to take on greater responsibility. These work-related activities include “stretch” assignments, shadowing to gain exposure to new tasks, and completing purposeful professional development. In the ideal scenario, employees understand the paths available to them and actively engage in their pursuit. Team members may also see this career pathing activity as a part of a larger compensation conversation (that includes both financial and non-financial rewards), and ultimately employees experience these to be part of a strong retention strategy. But what happens when it doesn’t work?

Invisible Career Paths

Unfortunately, issues of nonprofit retention—both high turnover and low turnover—often create obstacles to this ideal. The result is an “invisible” career path. In other words, the opportunities that may be available are a mystery to many nonprofit employees. 

What does this invisibility of the nonprofit career path mean for the sector? One potential outcome is that prospective employees may overlook the potential that the sector holds as offering a viable career path, given the limited public (and private!) visibility surrounding the opportunities within the industry. This invisible career perception is also shown to influence those already within the industry, through almost all levels of a nonprofit’s structure. In an older study, fifty-five percent of emerging nonprofit leaders noted that they felt the need to leave their organizations to advance their careers.

Sector Switching

With this belief in mind—that an employee must leave the current organization in order to advance their career—being so prevalent, where do these employees go next? In many instances, they enter other sectors. One fact from a recent study states that “only 31% of employees within the nonprofit sector have indicated that they would remain at their current workplace if offered a different job elsewhere at the same rate of pay.” This means that almost 70% of nonprofit workers would leave their current position for no increase in salary.  

That’s right: over two-thirds of our workforce reported that they would leave their current organization for another opportunity which offers the same rate of pay. Why? Because their current organization is not retaining them.

In fact, nonprofit employees aren’t even compelled to stay within the sector. This issue is especially evident during financially challenging times, such as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2017 study found that during times of fiscal turmoil, nonprofit employees are more likely to “sector switch” at a 26% higher rate in comparison to private sector employees. What this means is that during times of an economic crisis, the usual elements that draw an employee to a nonprofit organization (such as mission-driven work or flexible scheduling) are outweighed by the desire for economic stability. This not only leads to employees leaving an organization but also to a higher probability of them entering other sectors that offer similar or slightly better pay. 

Don’t Be Alarmed: You Can Start Your Retention Strategy Now

While these data points are alarming, our response as leaders and as a sector need not be alarmist. The pandemic created so many uncertainties, but it also created opportunities to change or start fresh. The nonprofit sector is said to be within a recovery stage from the labor loss. By one estimate, the sector has seen a 62% recovery of the estimated 1.64 million jobs lost during the first three months of the pandemic. Though this is starting to slow down due to variants and ever-changing policies, there is still hope.

That’s right—we can do this. We have the tools and intelligence to respond proactively and sustainably, especially at this dynamic point in time for the economy and the labor market. Here are three places to start.

Make retention practices a publicized priority…today.

It’s imperative that the nonprofit sector focuses on retaining their current employees. How can you make retention practices a priority today? Ask your team for their thoughts on what motivates them to work with your organization. Whether this information is gathered through an online survey or a brainstorming session in person, listen for the themes that emerge from these conversations and what ideas could be acted upon. Conversely, look back on recent staff losses. Why did the employees leave? Where did they go? Are there any patterns to learn from?

Design initial strategies that draw from motivation and maintenance activities.

Motivation-oriented retention strategies are those that recognize and inspire energy. These include recognition programs, formal and consistent support from peers and supervisors, and ongoing training and development. Maintenance retention strategies are the consistent elements of an employment agreement, including pay and reward structures, time off, and bonuses. Both types of strategies are beneficial when thinking about employee retention. 

Provide value to your team members with training and development

There is an emerging need for re- or upskilling due to changes in the labor market, so think about investing in training and education for your employees. Early evidence shows this need, and “employer-provided training is often the best way for individuals to get employable skills and for employers to get skilled workers.” The general workforce has experienced notable practical skills loss in the past two years. This same study from August 2021 indicates that nonprofits particularly benefit from offering their own training programs to both retain employees and ensure their teams have the right skills, with significant interest in building up the capacity and skills of their teams in high value programs.

Examining These Retention Strategy Methods

Which of these retention strategy methods has the biggest impact? Numerous studies show that formal training and development opportunities increase job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This leads to employees having a higher likelihood of staying within that organization. They have the opportunity to build their skills in a way that inspires greater ability in their current position, and they also feel elevated self-worth in their organization’s investment in their professional growth. 

In its most ambitious form, your nonprofit may opt to fund continuing education for field-specific or nonprofit-management degrees. In a more ready state, and often more economical, are the opportunities to provide access to non-credit professional development opportunities and platforms. The bottom line: use a retention strategy that invests in your team.

Going Forward

Hopefully, this prompts your organization to address the trends in nonprofit employee retention—and specifically the strategic solution we must build and deploy if we want our sector’s workforce to both sustain and improve. Interested to go deeper into this topic? The Nonprofit Help Center will be publishing a whitepaper entitled “Non-Financial Retention Strategies: Keeping Talent By Building It” in December, 2021, available online at www.nonprofithelpcenter.com and on the nonprofit professional development platform, www.meritnonprofit.com.

 

This spotlighted blog post is courtesy of the Nonprofit Help Center

 

About Dylan Foden, Contributing Author:

Dylan Foden is a research analyst with the Nonprofit Help Center and is concurrently pursuing his Master of Arts in Organizational Psychology at William James College.