With the unemployment rate dwindling and skilled workers becoming more difficult to find, employee retention is more urgent than ever. As an industry, construction has one of the highest turnover rates, with about 6 percent of the workforce leaving jobs each month. Transportation and utilities hover above the national average for turnover as well.

Everyone needs to work—but how do you make employees feel committed to working for you? We’ll show you why and how making workers feel seen, heard and supported can help you keep them on your team for the long haul.

Employees want independent, personalized training

Employees aren’t necessarily less engaged than they used to be—but the bar is higher in terms of what they expect from employers. This is particularly true of those currently in their twenties and thirties, Millennials and Gen Z’ers. Studies show that they want to learn independently in a personalized fashion—43 percent of Gen Z’ers say they want fully self-directed and independent on-the-job learning.

We’re all busier than ever. So how do you set up a system like that for growing and training employees, a process could take even longer than teaching someone yourself?

Another thing younger employees desire, according to studies by research giant Gallup, is access to personally tailored coaching and mentoring. How can managers integrate this kind of mentoring and development into their schedules?

The easiest and best answer to both these challenges is to seek help from technology.

ATS and onboarding software help you give new hires more attention

Technology allows you to give attention to candidates and new hires even when you aren’t able to sit down with them physically at that moment. Technology is also something that younger generations have come to expect in every interaction.

“Gen Z employees are already engaging with interactive tools prior to entering the workplace, so we have an obligation to adapt as we onboard these types of employees,” Barnes and Noble Education Inc.’s Jennifer Sanders told the SHRM blog.

Candidates applying to work for your company will feel more prized and appreciated when they get more prompt communication, more often. An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) with email templates that can be sent in an instant allows you to easily automate communication with applicants.

When you bring your new hire on, you can simplify the onboarding process with cloud-based onboarding software so that necessary forms are bundled and ready to be completed online from anywhere, leaving you and the new candidate to discuss something other than paperwork. Onboarding software also allows you to include company videos or initial instructions in your training that are tailored to the position or for your company.

An onboarding experience that shows the new employee you are focused on getting them started off on the right foot and launching their experience in a personalized way will make them feel embraced by the company and ready to put in hard work.

Standardizing your employee development

Once you find a good worker, you don’t want them to start thinking of shopping around for a new position on Day One, or on Day 100. Not only is turnover a lot of time and effort wasted, but businesses pay a steep price to search for and train new employees—to the tune of $2.9 million a day in the U.S.

Employees have always wanted to be acknowledged and appreciated, and genuine feedback goes a long way. A HubSpot study revealed that 69% of employees said they would work harder if they felt they were more appreciated. And experts say that employees want balanced feedback—both positive and negative—because one without the other feels biased and untrue.

Based on decades of research, Gallup recently compiled a list of 12 statements that they say accurately predict employee engagement and satisfaction. Among them are “I know what is expected of me at work”, “There is someone at work who encourages my development” and “This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow”.

Still, even if you as a manager or HR specialist know that feedback is important and performance should be documented, it’s not easy with everything else you’re managing to schedule and hold regular employee reviews, to create and track specific goals for each employee, and to follow through on those goals after a reasonable interval to make sure that employees feel supported enough to achieve what was expected of them.

A robust Performance Management software can significantly lighten the burden on managers of regular reviews and goal-setting. Automating a reviews schedule ensures that they cycle back to workers and keep in touch about goals. It can also keep employees feeling engaged and nurtured with touchpoints to strive for and a measurable way to mark their growth.

Arcoro’s HR modules automate the tedious and time-consuming aspects of the HR process.They even help you shape your approach to employee training and development with less time and effort on your part. All of this allows you more time to strategize on helping employees grow in a way that will best serve everyone, and shaping your team to create the best outcomes for your company.