The Watercooler

How to Keep Turnover from Turning YOU Over

Recently lost a good employee? You just lost money right off your bottom line.

And turnover costs a heck of a lot more than you might think. In addition to the expense involved with replacing an employee, consider these additional costs that can really add up:

  • Stress on your remaining employees. While a position remains vacant, your other employees have to pick up the slack. The extra work can take a big toll on them, undermining productivity, engagement and morale.
  • Opportunity costs. When HR and hiring managers have to spend precious time back-filling positions, that’s time taken away from other productive, revenue-generating activities.
  • Lost knowledge. Every time a trained employee quits, they take valuable knowledge about your processes, products, services and clients with them.

High turnover is an extremely expensive proposition – even more so in today’s employment market, where skills gaps and talent shortages have reached critical levels. Your best bet? Go on the offensive! These tips from PrideStaff will prevent turnover from turning YOU over – by keeping top employees happy, engaged and working for you:

 

Meet employees’ need for work/life satisfaction.

Achieving a healthy work/life mix is a significant driver of retention among younger workers, particularly Millennials – and it’s not hard to understand why. Providing the balance your employees crave increases their job satisfaction, making them less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere. Consider ways to facilitate telecommuting, job sharing, compressed workweeks and flexible work schedules.

Keep them growing.

Career stagnancy is one of the biggest fears of upwardly mobile workers. To keep them from jumping ship, create a place where employees can truly flourish and advance their careers:

  • Provide both formal and informal opportunities for employees to build their skills and knowledge within your company – including cross training, job sharing and interdepartmental projects.
  • Pair promising employees with mentors to fast-track their career growth.
  • Assign employees “stretch” assignments which challenge their thinking and abilities.
  • Build a culture in which acceptable risk-taking and failure are tolerated.

Conduct exit interviews.

A formal, comprehensive and consistently implemented exit interview process can help you find out why talented people leave. Though you may not retain the employee you’re interviewing, an exit interview provides an opportunity to reveal hidden problems which drive turnover, such as:

Corporate culture issues. What you don’t know about your culture can hurt your organization. Allowing an employee who’s leaving to candidly voice his opinions about your work environment may provide vital information about:

  • problems with managers or supervisors;
  • toxic co-workers, workplace bullying or discrimination;
  • company policies that drive people out of your organization

Aggressive competitors. Talent shortages are at near-record highs, and your biggest competitors may have their sites set on your best employees. Exit interviews may provide insights as to where the biggest threats lie – and who’s at the greatest risk of leaving.

Once you understand your drivers of your turnover, you can take steps to counteract them – and stop the bleeding.

Fight Burnout.

Heavy workloads may be a prime factor contributing to burnout, but research shows that exhaustion, cynicism and feelings of ineffectiveness are also to blame. In this earlier post, we share several tips for nipping burnout in the bud – and preventing unnecessary turnover, by:

  • Resisting the urge to micromanage. Bosses who make their employees feel capable and competent boost satisfaction, productivity, discretionary effort and retention.
  • Building more fun into the work day. “Fun breaks” allow employees to momentarily escape from their demanding schedules, recharge and refocus.
  • Recognizing achievements. Provide opportunities for all types of workers to be recognized for their hard work.

Provide the right staffing support.

PrideStaff provides flexible staffing services that help prevent burnout, facilitate greater work/life satisfaction and free your core team to work on important, challenging projects. Ready to turnover around? Contact your local PrideStaff office today to learn more.