Employee turnover is a real problem for businesses. It takes a lot of time and money to train new staff and once you’ve found somebody who is great for the job, you want to keep them there! It’ll take time before a new employee can do the job as efficiently as the old one. You also don’t want your best people leaving and going to work for your competitors because then they’re getting the benefit and not you.
In some cases, there isn’t anything you can do about an employee leaving, the job just isn’t the right fit for them.
But if you find that you’ve got particularly high employee turnover, it’s probably a direct result of something that you’re doing.
Here's some of the common reasons for employee turnover and how you can deal with them.
Low Salary
This is the most obvious reason that people are going to leave their job. If they can get paid more money to do the same thing elsewhere, they’re probably going to go for it. While some people prioritise other things over their salary, they still have to consider their own financial security. If you’ve got employees that have been working for you for a long time without a pay rise, they’re going to start feeling like they’re being taken for granted. It might be worth considering giving them a salary boost. Knowing the market rate for employees is really important, so you're offering what is expected.
Benefits
Salary is important but if you can’t afford to pay people more, you need to find another way of rewarding them for their hard work. People are often more concerned with the benefits that they get at work rather than their salary. If you offer your employees health insurance, you can make life a lot easier for them and they’ll think twice about leaving. You can make it more affordable by using health care and dental payment plans to cover the cost in installments. A company car is another great benefit but it’s pretty expensive so you can only afford to give it to certain key employees. Perhaps even offer them the option to have their birthday off each year! With work/life balance becoming increasingly important, little things like this could make a big difference.
Environmental Responsibility
The environmental responsibility of a company is important to consumers, it guides a lot of their purchasing choices. But it’s increasingly important to employees as well. It isn’t a priority for everybody and people aren’t likely to make it their deciding factor. That’s why you should take steps to run a greener business. It’s actually fairly easy to make basic changes around the office to reduce your impact on the environment. It’ll save you money, help you bring in customers and, most importantly, help you to keep your best employees.
Social Culture
Everyone has different priorities. For me, the social climate and overall morale could be the most important in my working environment. You can end up spending more time with your coworkers than your actual family so it's important that it's a group of people you like. Encouraging team bonding days or social outings could mean the difference between a strong, cohesive team that gets along or not.
High employee turnover is bad news for your business. You’ll constantly be spending money on training and your company will be far less efficient without your best people!
