Create a retention strategy to deal with your high employee turnover
The costs of high staff turnover can be detrimental to your business as recruitment, training and development don’t come cheap.
You also rather not lose your talent and knowledge as it could significantly hurt the quality of your services and the reputation of your brand.
Control your staff turnover
Sometimes you may feel like it’s completely out of your hands when your employees keep leaving your business, but it really is not.
You are in control of your employee turnover, and if your turnover is high, you are the one to fix it.
Using a suited HR retention strategy will help you pinpoint the cause of your high staff turnover and find solutions for these causes to help you improve your staff retention rates.
Do you know why your turnover is so high?
If not, all you need to do is ask. You can use exit interviews and questionnaires to find out why your employees are leaving, and talk to the employees that are staying. You might get some surprising answers.
Industries with high employee turnover
Some of the main industries that experience high turnover are:
- Hospitality
- Healthcare
- Financial and insurance
- Technology
Some of the main jobs that experience high staff turnover are:
- Retail work
- Customer service (phone support)
- Nursing
- Childcare
- Food service
- Sales
The 8 main reasons for your high employee departure rates
Some industries will naturally experience high staff turnover, higher than others. However, this shouldn’t stop anyone from attempting to improve their turnover rates through the use of a structured retention strategy.
Being in “this industry” is not an excuse to let go of all hope to improve your staff retention.
Staff members felt treated unfairly in comparison to other employees
- If staff members feel disadvantaged in comparison to other employees due to factors outside of the employees’ control, it will likely have a negative impact on their motivation and overall performance. Not having suited equality and diversity policies in place can be a cause of high staff turnover in many types of companies.
- If employees are disadvantaged due to for example gender, race or religion this is classed as discrimination in the workplace and is in breach of the Equal Pay Act 2010.
Unreasonable workload
- Employees felt they were unable to complete their workload in the time they were given. This led to increased job dissatisfaction for employees and high staff turnover rates for employers.
- Unmanageable workload leads to stress and frustration and can result in high levels of stress related absence as well as increased staff turnover rates.
Lack of career opportunities
- Ambitious employees have a vision, and want to continue to grow.
- If the company they are with doesn’t offer any hope to climb up the career ladder the interest for continuing to work for that company could slowly diminish, worsening high staff turnover rates amongst your most ambitious employees.
Not being recognised and rewarded for work
- Nothing is more frustrating than working hard on a project without being given credit. Worse even, to see someone else take or get given the credit for your work.
- As human beings, we all need recognition from our bosses, a pat on the shoulder and a well done every now and again.
Bad line management
- Most of us will have a bad boss experience. The impact of bad line management therefore probably doesn’t need much explaining. One bad line manager can significantly deteriorate your high staff turnover rates and affect the business as a whole.
The job is not what the employee was expecting
- When an employee starts at your company, they have a picture in mind. That picture was initially drawn by your job advertisement, your website and your interview process. But what if the employee starts and quickly realises the job is not what they signed up for? They could feel fooled, or simply unhappy with the actual role they have been placed in.
- This employee is far less likely to stay with the company than an employee who feels the job matches the offer they were made. The recruitment of high volumes of staff using deceitful practices (accidental or deliberate) will lead to extremely high staff turnover rates and will negatively influence longer term existing staff within the company as well.
- It could also happen that roles change overtime due to reorganisation or smaller changes stacking up overtime, leaving the employee in a position they did not wish to be placed into.
There are no training opportunities
- Training opportunities can include both long and short term training programs.
- Training can include the smallest of efforts, including 1-2-1 coaching, simple but constructive feedback from management and allocated time to practice and learn. If an employee feels they are not getting the support they need to develop themselves, they might not see the benefit of staying with high staff turnover numbers as a result.
Lack of faith in the business
- What if your employees don’t feel like the business is going to offer long term opportunities, or exciting new projects as its clinging on to its last hope? Staff could worry about redundancies and pay cuts. It is unlikely they will feel like there is room for their personal growth or development.
Decreasing your high turnover rates and improving staff retention through the use of an HR retention strategy
Promoting equality
- It goes without saying that all employees need to be treated equally and fairly. Inequality and lack of diversity in your workplace has a negative impact on everyone, it limits you and your employees and leaves you open to serious discrimination claims, causing harm to your business’ reputation and tribunal costs.
Managing workflow and workload
- Each employee and each team should have a fair workload that is achievable and matches with the job descriptions.
- By managing workload you will positively affect both your average absence cost and your staff turnover numbers.
Provide opportunities for growth
- Development and growth opportunities are staff incentives and help motivate staff members to improve their overall job performance.
- Ensuring growth opportunities are, or can become, available in house will help you to keep ambitious staff members who are looking for career progression and personal development.
Pay and reward
- Employees that get rewards for their hard work will experience higher levels of job satisfaction and show higher levels of productivity.
Invest in leadership training and development
- Your management team has a large impact on overall job satisfaction.
- Ensure your line managers understand all areas of people management. Support them to develop the right social skills and help avoid moments of friction and dissatisfaction.
Clearly communicate with your staff
- Clearly communicate with your staff members from the beginning of their employment and throughout.
- Keeping your staff members informed will minimise the risk of confusion, feelings of uncertainty and fear.
Offer development opportunities
- Offering in-house training doesn’t need to be complex or expensive. Training can include 1-2-1 coaching, monitoring other employees and following online training projects.
- The feeling of growth and development will have an additional positive effect on employees. When people feel like they are getting more than just pay out of their employment they will be more engaged.
