Leadership Best Practices to Retain Top Talent through 2025: An HR Perspective
As we navigate through 2025, small to medium businesses (SMBs) in Canada are facing unique staffing and retention challenges. Small and medium business owners know that the best way to build an economically viable business is to keep and retain great people, and that isn’t all about the money. Increasingly, employees are looking for reasons that go beyond bonuses and raises to commit to an organization.
Your bottom line stability depends on your ability to build a quality team, and hannahHR is built to help new leaders understand their teams better. We’ve also outlined a few of our top tips below. As a business leader, your ability to proactively guide your team through challenging economic and political times will pay off with long-term tenure and a deep and meaningful team culture.
Competitive Compensation and Benefits
Let’s get these two out of the way. It’s no secret that your team wants to be appropriately paid for their time and effort to commit to your business. Do your best to recognize and respect that, and pay them as well as you can to ensure they’re confident you appreciate their commitment.
Regular Salary Reviews
When was the last time your team got raises that weren’t tied to the cost of living? Conduct regular salary reviews to ensure you’re competitive within your industry and region. This helps prevent employees from seeking better-paying opportunities elsewhere.
Comprehensive Benefits Package
Are there other ways you can support your team to thrive besides raises? Offer a robust benefits package that goes beyond their basic health insurance. Consider including mental health support, wellness programs, and professional development opportunities too.
Employee Development and Growth
Career Progression Paths
Your employees are just as worried about their career progression as you are about retention - this is your chance to work together for everyone’s benefit! Clearly define and collaborate with your team on building career progression paths within your company. This gives employees a sense of ownership and understanding of future opportunities and encourages them to grow within your company (and not think about taking their talents elsewhere)!
Mentorship Programs
Connecting employees to others in the company who can support their professional growth can build relationships that inspire employees to stay with a company when times are tough, and they otherwise might look elsewhere. Implement mentorship programs to foster professional growth and strengthen employee connections within your team.
Continuous Learning Opportunities
Are there ways your employees could learn new skills to improve their work in their current role or prepare them for the next level? Provide access to and encouragement of training, workshops, and courses that enhance employees' skills and keep them engaged. And don’t make them find time to do them - make it a priority that your employees grow while working, not off the side of their desks!
Positive Work Culture
Regular Feedback and Recognition
Positive reinforcement is a huge motivator and helps individual team members feel recognized by both management and colleagues. Establish a culture of regular feedback and recognition. This can include implementing peer recognition programs and regular performance discussions. Take and encourage input from your employees, too - employees tend to commit to a culture of open communication in the long term.
Work-Life Balance Initiatives
We all have work to do, but it’s important to recognize that we work to live, and not the other way around! Employees everywhere are struggling to balance work with their personal lives. Promote work-life balance through initiatives such as "no-meeting" days, encouraging employees to use their vacation time, and respecting off-hours communication boundaries.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Inclusive Hiring Practices
In 2025, diverse perspectives create better work environments and end products for our clients and customers, so ensuring equitable hiring practices should be at the top of everyone’s HR lists. Implement inclusive hiring practices to attract a diverse pool of candidates. Use unbiased tools and methods to determine who to interview and take on board. This can lead to a more innovative and dynamic workforce.
DEI Training
Ensure that everyone on your team is ready to work inclusively with a diversified team as you grow! There should be a zero tolerance policy for discrimination in your workplace. Provide regular DEI training for all employees to foster an inclusive work environment where all team members feel valued and respected.
Technology and Tools
HR Management Systems
HR teams spend a large portion of their time in administration when they can build a culture and ensure that your team is as engaged and loyal as possible. Investing in HR technology, like hannahHR, our our AI-powered, company-specific documentation reference platform, can save your HR support 3-5 hours per week! That’s 3-5 hours better used on strategic initiatives and employee engagement.
Not only that, hannahHR provides your HR admin with insights on what types of questions your employees are asking. Though their questions are completely anonymous, you’ll see trends in topics that will help you address issues, celebrate strengths, and understand what kinds of things your employees really care about in their workplace as they use hannahHR, allowing you to build your culture to fit the team you want to retain!
Employee Engagement Platforms
Finding out how your team feels about their work and your company is the best way to go about solving challenges they’re feeling in their day-to-day. Utilize employee engagement platforms to gather regular feedback, measure satisfaction, and identify areas for improvement in real-time.
Onboarding and Integration
Structured Onboarding Process
How can you make sure you get new employees well past their 3-month review? Develop a comprehensive onboarding process that extends beyond the first few days, helping new hires integrate smoothly into the company culture and their roles. Keep them engaged by encouraging relationships both inside and outside their departments and collecting their feedback as they onboard with your company.
Need help? Reach out to our friends at BLANKSLATE to understand and develop the ideal onboarding process for your company. Ultimately, with an engaging onboarding process, your employees will feel more supported, and your new team members will inspire their colleagues with fresh perspectives. It’s a win all around.
The Buddy System
When you’re new to a job, forming social connections, particularly outside your role or immediate team, can be challenging. Implement a buddy system where new employees are paired with experienced team members, regardless of potentially differing responsibilities, to facilitate their integration into the larger organization and provide support.
The time and energy facilitating employee turnover is better spent elsewhere. Set your team up for success and long-term retention by focusing on these HR morale-building strategies so your company can attract top talent, improve employee satisfaction, and ultimately reduce turnover. Remember that the key to success is consistently gathering employee feedback and adapting these strategies to meet the evolving needs of your workforce, so pay attention, listen well, and grow and change with your diverse and committed team!
