8 Ways To Keep Your Software Developers Happy at Your Organization
Finding a good development team can prove tough. Even if you already have a skilled team, there is a high chance that they might get headhunted by your competition. As an employer, you must therefore go the extra mile to satisfy the needs of your software development team. To that end, here are eight sure-fire ways to keep your software developers happy at your organization. So without further ado, let's get to it!
8 Tips for Retaining Software Development Talent
Empower Them
Regardless of their hierarchical position, ensure that your development team participates in decisions that directly or indirectly affect their work when you hire software developers. Doing so will inculcate a feeling of inclusion and tell them that their opinion is valued within the organization.
By lending them an ear and acting upon their feedback, it becomes clear to your development team that their value and talents are recognized. Moving beyond command decisions, this empowerment is invaluable to what they feel towards the organization. Allowing space for creative freedom is crucial to developing innovative solutions to problems, offering more value to your enterprise.
2. Offer Learning Opportunities
A workplace environment does not exist in a vacuum. New technology is consistently appearing. From new functionalities in products to new coding languages and best practices, the technology sector is in constant flux. As the technology market evolves, you should provide your development team with the opportunity to evolve alongside it while learning and upskilling. When you hire dedicated developers, if you wish to build a reputation of an adaptive, nurturing workspace, empowering your development team to grow and learn is key.
3. Offer Them a Career
No one wants to stagnate. People desire growth, movement, and a change of surrounding to maintain productivity and satisfaction levels. If you insist on keeping your developers in the same position, sometimes even compensation is not enough. Sometimes just because you wish to keep someone right where he is, just because he is good at what he does, can backfire on you as the person in question may leave for greener pastures.
To avoid such an outcome, the first step would be to keep communication flowing fluidly. If an employee has a progress idea, make sure that you hear him out.
Communication acts as a conduit of knowledge detailing how a specific developer's career is progressing. Through such communication, you will have a clearer picture of the skills they might have acquired, whether or not their efficiency has increased and whether they fit the bill for a higher ranking job. Armed with this information, you can offer the developer an opportunity to synergize with his abilities, resulting in a happier, more content employee. If you are clear about the growth opportunities in your company, your developer might end up staying with you as he climbs the ladder at your organization. P.S.- low attrition rates work as amazing calling cards and if in-house costs ae proving to be too high, you can always outsource software development.
4. Respect Their Market Value
Given how unique (to the person) this figure is to record, there is no specific formula for determining an employee's market value. With a little dab of due diligence and a little more old-fashioned research, you will be able to gauge what each employee brings to the table. Factors like experience, skillset, and expertise play an important role in determining the worth of an employee. Of course, you will have to bounce these numbers off a competitor to get a basic idea of what the market currently grants the developer in question.
The perks, raises, and other benefits you offer your developers should be better than or at least equal to the market standard if you wish to keep your developers happy and engaged in your business.
Every employee deserves the respect that is owed to them. If they do not feel valued or properly compensated, it won't take them long to abandon ship and swim to the latest schooner sailing around.
5. Make Them Feel at Home
This may sound a little clichéd but making an employee feel at home is crucial to retaining him. Any company can offer your people more money, but pure cash sometimes fails to motivate an employee, especially if they feel valued, happy, and comfortable in their workspace
Interesting team-building activities, a community based on respect and lucid communication, and even something as minuscule as free beverages and snacks can add a lot of value to making your workplace a better, more inviting environment. Make sure that you do your research to understand what your competitors are offering and make every effort to beat that.
6. Examine Why Some People Leave
No matter how hard you try, there will always be a couple of employees who will leave. The optimal strategy in such a situation would be to learn from the experience and ensure that no other employee faces a similar problem. Not every issue has a solution, but learning about it can help you be prepared for the future.
Exit interviews though underrated are invaluable instruments that assist in unearthing priorly unperceived issues that your employee might be facing. Paying attention to their feedback will reveal a lot of what you need to alter at your organization to accommodate your employees' needs better.
Ideally, interviews shouldn't just be conducted at the beginning and end of an employee's tenure at your organization. Personal interaction with your development team can give you a good sense of the prevailing atmosphere in the team and its morale levels. Conducting interviews when there is a drop or even a spike in productivity can help you identify issues and, conversely, things that you've done right.
7. Recognize Their Work
Validation is a human need. Everyone wants to work at an organization where their work is recognized and appreciated. Working in an environment where your success is celebrated can add a lot of loyalty. This recognition doesn't have to be over the top; a simple verbal congratulations as recognition for honest hard work in front of the team can work wonders for employee morale and productivity.
It is extremely satisfying knowing that your day-to-day job makes a difference to your company and your clients. Letting your developers know that their work matters and they matter can bring the development team closer. Pro tip- keep offering little confidence boosters when expected and even when not expected.