High employee turnover rate is one of the most challenging issues for many businesses today. Employers are realizing that employee turnover can be very costly to their businesses. The time, money, and effort spent on hiring and onboarding new employees can add up to a significant amount. High churn rates can also damage morale for the remaining employees, who are often required to take on additional workloads. Over time this can compound their stress and result in another unhappy employee and increased levels of churn.
Want to minimize your employee turnover? Here are seven tips that are sure to help.
Hiring Right – Is there a hiring formula? Hiring for fit is equally as important as hiring for skills. Look internally at your hiring process to ensure that the evaluation takes into consideration all the success factors for the role. Whether it be ability, attitude and / or previous experience, it is important to remember that you are hiring the whole person. Don’t look at the hire through a singular lens, but as a whole package. Additionally, be sure that the candidate is a good fit for your company’s culture.
Compensate Appropriately – It goes without saying that employees should be treated fairly. To pay competitively, you must have up-to-date salary information for your industry. It is worth doing an annual comparison review of compensation strategies to benchmark yourself against top competitors. You want to be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to the compensation negotiation. Don’t forget benefits – competitive benefits often become a key deciding factor for many talents.
Non-Monetary Compensation Counts – Given the diversity of the workforce today, monetary compensation might not be able to satisfy the lifestyle choices of your hires. As a result of this, an employer’s ability to address their employees’ personal needs has become a competitive advantage. Consider offering telecommuting, compressed schedules or on-site or back-up day care.
Building an Engaging Team – Bolster employees’ engagement. Employees need social interaction and a rewarding work environment. They need respect and recognition from managers, and a challenging position with room to learn, grow and advance. Employee engagement cannot be built overnight; building a company culture of engagement should be an ongoing objective for all business leaders.
Building an Open and Positive Culture – Managers often overlook how important a positive work environment is for staffers, and how far meaningful recognition and praise from managers can go to achieve that. Show your staff that their hard work and success are being valued. Awards, recognition and praise might just be the single most cost-effective way to maintain a happy, productive workforce.
Prioritizing Development and Planning for Growth - Employees place HUGE value on opportunities for growth. Provide employees with a goal to work toward, and a potential for advancement. Managers should also provide them with guidance on how they can advance within the business/department. Promoting within the business (where possible) will also encourage strong employee engagement and loyalty.
Planning for churn – In the construction field, having the right apprenticeship program to train up new staff is key to controlling quality and combating churn. Apprenticeship programs can help create loyalty in apprentices that become employees. Hiring and training apprentices will also help to fill the labor shortage problem in the construction field. (Humber College offers apprenticeship programs in the construction field.)
While it is impossible to completely eliminate employee turnover altogether, it is a smart, successful business that works to reduce levels of churn. The financial and cultural implications of high-employee turnover can be easily mitigated by using the steps above. Are you looking to reduce employee turnover? Do you need help adjusting your company culture to reduce levels of churn? We can help.
