In the lurch! That is where your freelance business will get left if you have a high turnover of staff. In fact, it can cause an enormous amount of disruption to your business, adding extra work to other employees and to you.  You'll need to fill these spaces and train the new people up. That is why high staff turnovers need to be avoided wherever possible, making staff retention something that needs to be high on any business owners or managers priority list. With that in mind read on for some creative strategies that can help with this problem if you're new to hiring -- and keeping -- employees.

Pay fair

One strategy that folks in charge of running a business can use to ensure a better staff retention rate is to pay fair wages. Yes, I know it's tempting to pay the least amount possible. However, paying just on, or under the goin

g rate is never a good idea. Remember when you were a struggling freelance writer, and your competitors (hopefully not you) were getting paid bottom of the barrel rates?

Low pay attracts the wrong kind of employees, ones that have to work there because they can't get anything else, rather than the ones that are at the top of the field. It also means that anyone you do employ is likely going to be on the lookout for a better-paid post, meaning your business is vulnerable to them leaving at any time.

To remedy this, pay a decent hourly wage or salary. Also, pay for overtime, and you can even incentivize longevity in your staff by offering increases in wages for long service. It is in these ways, you can use pay as an incentive to work for you, and to keep working for you, and so improve staff retention.

Play fair

It's not all about pay, though. You have to play fair, as well as pay fair, to encourage your staff to stay. So what does playing fair look like in the world of business?

Well, in part it's about providing additional benefits to your employees that will reduce the risk of them jumping ship. This can include things like medical insurance, a bonus scheme, and even workers compensation insurance, a form of insurance that will protect your employees and your business if they suffer an injury at work.

In addition, it's vital to take a look at the expectations and working condition that you are providing for your staff. A healthy work environment, one that acknowledges and does something about major stressors can make all the difference here. For example, repeatedly imposing unrealistic expectations and deadlines can cause a lot of stress in your workers. While realistically assessing how long things will take, including breaks for stress-busting exercises is a much better idea.

You can even organize work-based wellness activities such as yoga, exercise, or meditation classes. Something that will help your employees deal with stress in their day to day work lives. Remember, if folks are less stressed, they are much more likely to enjoy their job, something that in turn makes it much more unlikely that they will up leave you, creating a staffing vacuum that you then have to deal with.