Software industry: How to retain your employees

Digitization, new technologies, and virtuality to which we have become accustomed in the last few years have pushed us to depend more and more on programs that make all our mobile devices and computers work. As a result of the high demand for these new technologies, more and more companies dedicated to satisfying these needs are emerging and that is why you have probably heard about the great demand for IT profiles in the technology industry. This is one of the main problems that companies that develop and market software are running into today.

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In addition to the challenge of finding employees, there is a need to retain them to avoid their rotation. Loyalty is generally associated with customers, what companies seek is to ensure that people who have already accessed their services or products continue to choose them. This same concept appears when talking about employees, especially in the software industry.

Why is it important to build employee loyalty?

For a company in the technology industry dedicated to software, it becomes increasingly difficult to find the desired worker profiles and for them to stay with the company for a reasonable period. Changes in lifestyle, new generations who no longer seek to have the same job forever and trends towards a freer life, lead those who know a specific subject to set the rules about the conditions under the ones that will work.

Today, companies in this field do not compete to get customers but compete to attract employees. They generally do not use marketing to sell their products or services, but they are beginning to do so to attract human resources. The idea is that employees see how good it is to work in that company so that they choose it themselves, and once they gain interest and start working together, the challenge continues to retain them and prevent them from quickly migrating to another company with better conditions. Achieving it implies that employees integrate from another side to the company, that they know its values and that their objective is not simply to go to do their job for the salary, but also to be committed to the company for which they work. On the other hand, making employees loyal brings savings in resources and time that are invested in looking for new talents, training them, and getting them to adapt.

Some strategies to attract and retain collaborators

Today, the priorities for employees are different from perhaps 5-10 years ago. People increasingly seek freedom to manage their time, work with hybrid modalities that allow them to handle themselves according to their needs, and the work environment is highly valued.

Here, we tell you the main strategies that can be implemented to achieve this:

• Offer a friendly work environment: a good work environment is one of the main requests that employees have when evaluating where to work, especially these profiles of younger people who pay a lot of attention to personal relationships and respect for diversity.
• Offer continuous training and growth opportunities: this is another of the issues that employees pay attention to when choosing where to work. Having training available so that they can increase their knowledge is a good strategy that will also benefit the company since the knowledge acquired will help improve the development of work.
• Flexible hours and work modality: if we learned anything from the pandemic, it is to adapt. Today, the most valued work modality is the hybrid, where face-to-face days can be combined with the home-office model. In addition, the possibility of having flexible schedules, which allow optimization of time and do not make employees stay in one place for the simple fact of meeting a schedule, is another of the issues that weigh when choosing.
• Have policies adapted to employees that offer days away from the office, special days or recognition: implement strategies that promote the well-being of employees, special days away from the office, gifts on their birthday or care if they get sick, for example; these are actions that help build employee loyalty.
• Offer the corresponding remuneration according to their work: a no less important issue, which seems obvious but it is not, is to offer employees the corresponding remuneration according to their work. Salary improvements are one of the main issues that are taken into account when choosing whether to continue in the same company or move to a new one and in this area, in particular, salary offers are always tempting.

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In companies looking for collaborators with IT profiles, the possibilities of constant adaptation of the work must be taken into account. In most cases, the only tool needed to carry out the tasks is a computer with an internet connection. For this reason, many times the possibility of carrying out the work from another place outside the office is taken into account, be it the home or even the possibility of working for a month from abroad. Also, if the company provides a computer for work, a special desk chair, and other issues that make it more comfortable to work at home, it is a plus.

Due to the high demand for these profiles that exist today, competition is generated between companies to attract the most qualified profiles, offering increasingly better working conditions.