Have you ever had a job where every week someone would leave the company, resulting in another open position? Not only does this create a stressful work environment but it is expensive to the business’ bottom line. It costs a company twice as much money to go through the hiring process and train a new person than it does to retain good employees.
Sir Richard Branson sums it up nicely:
“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
In order to combat employee turnover, you need to nurture your employees just like you would any paying customer. Make them feel successful by offering positive feedback, listening to their concerns, and providing them with perks that ultimately enhance their desire to come to work.
Here are some ways to lower turnover in your workplace:
- Hire Right the First Time: You should pay specific attention to the factors in your hiring process, assessing what works and what doesn’t. Try not to hire based on gut instinct, but rather look at patterns of employee behavior that the candidate possesses. Hire someone who will be a good long-term fit with the line of business, and demonstrates the drive and skill to do a good job.
- Invest in Career Development: Once you have the right team in place, don’t let them become dissatisfied or burned-out in their roles. Offer the ability to enhance their knowledge about your business (cross-training), future roles (step-training), and their interests. Investing in career development will be much less expensive than hiring new employees when vacancies occur.
- Offer Benefits & Perks: Evaluate your compensation package, especially the benefits. Are you competitive in the market? Do you offer your employees something that your competition doesn’t? This applies to particular perks of working for your business. Maybe you offer the ability to earn additional time off, or paid to attend team building meetings to nearby amusement parks/game days, such as the zoo, an aquarium, a waterpark or sports days. These types of benefits are what keep employees interested in working for your company.
- Create a Culture of Trust: Most importantly, you want your employees to trust the company and its leaders. Managers should not micromanage or impose restrictions. They should engage employees, coworkers and other managers to submit feedback about both the job and the company. Encourage solutions to problems/issues and provide recognition when such solutions are presented. Hire the correct people and trust them to do their job.
Employee turnover will always be a concern in any business. There will always be people who experience life changes that lead them to move to other positions with other companies, or become a stay-at-home parent. By applying these few tips, you’ll be able to create a better work environment for your employees and help your business’s bottom line. At DecisionHR we want to help you succeed. If you have any questions about employee turnover and other ways to help keep your employees happy, don’t hesitate to contact your HR Business Partner.
888.828.5511
