Employee Retention Tips: Why 61% of Our Staff Stay 6+ Years

This Friday is Employee Appreciation Day. To me, Employee Appreciation Day is a lot like Valentine’s Day—they’re both reminders of things we should be doing all year long. If you’re already showing appreciation and love to keep your spouse happy or boost engagement and retention on your team, then the holidays are kind of unnecessary. But I like the reminder not to take those important connections for granted.

And personally, I have a lot to be grateful for.

61% Employee Retention for 6+ Years

An amazing 61% of our employees at The FruitGuys have worked with us for over six years, and of those employees, 58% have been here for ten years or more. That means the majority of our team started working with us before the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s pretty incredible because in the first weeks of March 2020, we had to furlough 100 of our 180 team members. Then, a few months later, we had no choice but to lay most of them off.

The people who were left worked so hard to keep our business afloat, and many of them are still here. Even more incredibly, many of the employees who were furloughed or even laid off came back to The FruitGuys as soon as they could. I still get a little choked up every time I think about it.

We Lost Over Half Our Team—What Brought Them Back?

I asked one of our returning employees this question, and she said that the camaraderie of our team is what drew her back: “When you trust your team, you’re eager to support them in any way you can. The FruitGuys not only talks the talk, they walk the walk.”

I’m sure everyone has a different answer to that “why” question. But my guess is that most people who came back to The FruitGuys did so because they feel respected and cared for, believe in our mission, and like the flexibility and autonomy we give them to get their work done. We don’t necessarily think about these things as employee engagement and retention strategies—we just want to support our team’s wellbeing—but the fact that people stay with us because of them is definitely a benefit.

Why Employee Engagement and Retention Matter

Entrepreneurs and CEOs get a lot of credit because they’re seen as the idea makers, and we need those ideas and innovations. But an idea is just a dream without execution, and execution isn’t possible without exceptional people. I’m deeply and truly grateful to all of our team members, regardless of how long we’ve worked together, because they make everything we do possible. For any of our Fruit Family reading this: Thank you for sticking with us and having faith in the great things we can do together.

We have a history of poem-writing at The FruitGuys, so here’s a short one for our team:

Every day you feed people far and wide

In healthy fruit and snacks, you take pride

It’s not just about the things that we sell

It’s our mission and care that makes things gel

Thank you for all you do each day

To bring joy to people, the FruitGuys way

Employee Retention Strategies to Try

Ultimately, I think long-term employee engagement and retention come down to creating a culture of appreciation and care that your team can feel every day. You can do that in all kinds of ways, but here are a few of them:

• Ask your team how they’d like to be appreciated (we have employee appreciation questionnaire templates that can help you)
• Celebrate employee wins and milestones together in company meetings
• Encourage team members to show appreciation for each other through notes and shoutouts (at The FruitGuys, we created a Google Form that makes it quick and easy to share these)
• Create an Employee Engagement & Wellness Committee to advocate for the team’s wants and needs
• Stock fresh fruit and healthy snacks in your break room to keep everyone fed and feeling good

Of course, celebrating Employee Appreciation Day thoughtfully is a great idea, too.

What Works for You?

The FruitGuys is all about showing appreciation—but there’s always more to learn, and I want to keep improving. So, I’d love your suggestions: What are your favorite employee retention strategies? How do you appreciate your team? Of everything you’ve tried, what was the most meaningful or most effective?

You can send your ideas to info@fruitguys.com or our Contact Us page. Use the subject “Chief Banana,” and our customer service team will get them to me!