Retaining Staff Boosts Revenue, Remote Working Major Pull For Employees: Study

At a time when layoffs by global tech firms are grabbing headlines every other day, a new report suggests that retaining employees will help companies grow their revenue and profits.

Infosys Knowledge Institute's report The Future Of Work, 2023 says companies that increased their (employee) retention over the last three years saw a 75 per cent growth in revenue and 77 per cent profit. This is at least 17-18 percentage points higher than for those that decreased their employee retention.

"In the current market environment, growth is clearly linked to staff retention," the report says.

The major factor helping in staff retention is remote working for employees, says the study. At least 65 per cent of senior executives say they are increasing remote working to attract or retain talent.

Successful businesses of the future are likely to focus less on the employees' work location, says the report, adding they will focus on the diversity of employee pool and how well they are supported.  

In addition, wellness initiatives, home office stipends, and reskilling programmes are likely to improve staff retention.

Nearly 2,500 senior executives and managers working in companies with over $1 billion in revenue across the US, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand have been interviewed for the report.

Key To Improving Revenue, Profits

The report also notes that automation, diversity in talent pool, and reskilling can help large companies generate up to $1.4 trillion in revenue and $282 billion in profits. To put that in another way: they can help add 7.7 percentage points to profit growth and 6.7 percentage points to revenue growth.

According to the report, full automation can help such companies earn $808 billion in incremental revenues and $123 billion in incremental pre-tax profits.

Hiring a diverse talent pool can help these companies improve their revenue by $503 billion and pre-tax profit by $145 billion.

"In the case of reskilling, the better you are at training, the better your growth. Focusing on hiring a wider range of skillsets, and using training effectively to give them the skills they need, is linked to faster growth and competitiveness," the report says.