Employees leaving from work affects all businesses at some point. Even if you’re doing something fascinating, there will always be a few people who find a reason to leave. A healthy employee turnover rate is a good thing. It helps you get rid of the underperforming staff. However, when the employee turnover rate statistics show a higher percentage than ten, you should first look into your recruitment process.
There’re many possible causes of employee turnover, but unfortunately, managers aren’t always aware of them. As a result, it mostly comes as a surprise when an employee leaves, causing significant problems to teams, projects, and the company. Employee turnover and retention strategies should go hand in hand. Regardless of their niche, business owners can benefit a lot from keeping a list of their most valuable people and making continuous efforts to keep them engaged.
However, too many managers get interested in their best players’ job satisfaction only once the employee gets ready to leave. Don’t make this mistake. Getting regular feedback and holding retention interviews helps you foresee the upcoming problems leading to a wave of turnovers. So what can you do if some of your people are getting ready to leave? It all starts with open communication.
Here are the strategies to reduce employee turnover.
1. How to know who’s leaving? Ask them
The best way to predict if employees are planning to stay with you is to ask about their plans. And yes, you should ask everybody. Assuming everyone is leaving keeps you on your toes and makes you communicate with the employees more often. You’ll get to know who’s thinking of leaving, but most importantly, you’ll learn the reasons why someone would want to quit.
It is valuable information you can use to improve vital aspects of your company. When conducting the interviews, don’t always take the first answers for granted. Some people might say they have no intention of leaving, but they’re only staying out of necessity. They could have a major life event coming up. Or they’re waiting for you to promote them so they could negotiate a better pay cheque in a new place.
2. One person leaving makes others consider it, too
People who are unhappy with their current position love talking about their possible new job to colleagues. The word will spread, and soon others will also start looking for supposedly better opportunities. What’s more, the problems making one person leave are likely troubling others as well. So if one employee decides to leave, plenty of others will probably follow the lead. And it’s crucial to take every dismissal request as a wake-up call. It’s time to look into your company’s shortcomings.
3. Not all your employees are equal
Although it doesn’t sound nice, if you want to cut employee turnover, you need to stop treating people equally. In truth, some people will always work harder and get better results than others. So the top performers should get rewarded for their efforts. Plus, make sure you put them together in teams with other A-players and not the low-performing staff. Nothing makes an employee reconsider their job quicker than the feeling of not being appreciated enough.
4. Make work fun
However serious the challenges your staff face at work, people should still have plenty of fun. Companies with the lowest employee turnover aren’t often businesses with the best perks or the highest salaries. They’re places where people enjoy themselves and the work they do. High productivity should be a priority anyway. However, you’d be amazed at how much people’s output increases if they have fun completing the tasks. A lively work environment will also help to develop a stronger sense of belonging. Humans are social creatures, and if they don’t feel like part of a community at work, they won’t stay for long.
5. Stop micromanaging
Do you sit next to your employees and micromanage everything they do? It may seem like an effective way to increase your staff’s productivity, but in reality, it never works. People get irritated when someone keeps checking on what they do every ten minutes. As a result, they get less work done. When the situation continues, most employees will start looking for a job with more freedom. It’s natural. Everyone wants to do their best work, and they need some space for it. As a company manager, your job is to carry out business strategies. Trust your employees and let them work independently. They’ll be more productive and happy to stay with you for years.
6. Improve the recruitment process
All strategies to cut employee turnover start with recruitment. Your primary goal is to make fresh employees feel welcomed and help them get acquainted with others. It’s good to have an onboarding plan to stay on top of your new workers’ needs. It’s a simple checklist covering everything a new hire would need for an excellent first day and week. Another tip is to give the new employee a mentor.
This person can answer all the recruits’ questions and become their first personal connection in the company. It’s a great way to give someone a warm welcome to the company. Your company could also have an employee handbook. You can hand it out to new workers to prepare them for meeting your company’s mission. They’d know all the rules before starting working with other team members.
7. Managers need to feel included
One of the worst things to happen to any company is when a manager leaves. It can take a long time to find a replacement for a competent manager, making the costs of employee turnover high. Meanwhile, the team and their output suffer. What keeps a manager aboard? It’s inclusion. As a business owner, you need to value your managers’ opinions and include them when making important decisions. When people feel like they’re taken seriously at the workplace, they are more likely to stay there for years and even decades.
8. Momentum is not easy to stop
People take a lot of time before they decide to leave their jobs. Once they’re already going through the interview process in a new place, it’s almost impossible to stop them. So your best chance to halt the retention process is right at the beginning. Let’s say your employees want a better coffee machine for their lunch area. Not a big deal, right? You get them the coffee machine, and everyone’s happy. But ignoring the request can make your employees feel a bit of resentment towards you. Ignore their second and third requests also, and the resentment starts to grow like a snowball.
9. Accept the negative state of things
Employees leaving your business is a clear indicator of something gone wrong in your enterprise. Unfortunately, many business owners are unable to accept a negative state of things. As a result, they hardly change anything and keep losing even more workers. Some business owners even get defensive when they hear their employees criticising the company. It only cuts off their ability to listen and show empathy.
Don’t be one of them. Showing respect to your employees’ opinions makes them trust you and share their views more openly. The best thing about communicating openly with your staff is getting great ideas. Your employees can have excellent solutions to all sorts of problems in your business. You can only hear them when you’re ready to accept the need for improvements.
10. Take action
The best high employee turnover solution is displaying a willingness to improve the work environment. So after you’ve interviewed your staff and gotten some feedback, it’s time to start taking action and give your best to fix the most pressing issues. You might not fix all the troubles immediately. It’s okay. What matters is showing your employees you take their complaints seriously. Start with handling a few minor problems and see how it boosts everyone’s morale and increases their trust in you. In the best-case scenario, people who wanted to leave might even start to reconsider their intentions.
In summary
You can employee the above tips to prevent employee turnover. Remember, it all starts with having a welcoming recruiting process. Once you’ve got the people onboard, don’t forget to ask for constant honest feedback about your company’s possible shortcomings. You can’t fix everything at once, but making tiny improvements every day ensures people want to work for you for years. It cuts down your costs and enables you to develop strong, highly competent teams with experienced employees. What could be better?
