Beginning of each year is when employees get extra happy with bonus pay-outs. However, with the bonuses come the possibility of employees looking for greener pastures. Some level of employee turnover is a necessary and expected part of any modern workforce. Successful organizations plan on turnover, and plan for it in intelligent ways. Through succession planning, proactive recruitment, and retention strategies, the negative effects of employee turnover can be managed well.
When people leave, the ripple effect may be felt throughout the company. The costs of lost knowledge and recruiting/training new employees can quickly add up. Over the long term, turnover can really harm overall business success.
So how do you stop turnover before it hurts your company? Below is some advice on what to do about employee turnover:
Hire The Right Employees and Manage Expectations
Good employee retention starts with outstanding recruiting. Interview and vet candidates carefully, not just to ensure they have the right skills, but also that they fit well with the company culture, managers, and co-workers.
Take time during the hiring process to ensure the candidate is the kind of person who can go a long way with your company for a long time. A candidate’s tenure with their prior employers in similar roles should be consistent with your expectations within your own company.
During the interview process, clearly outline work and salary expectations in the job description before the employee starts work with your company. Creating clear expectations for the role before they are hired can help an employee be productive from the start. Feeling as though they are hired for their specific talents will eliminate any anxiety they have about possibly taking on a role that is beyond their area of expertise.
Open Communication
If regular employee-employer conversations don’t take place, you might be completely caught off guard when you learn of an employee’s intention to leave. Listen to all concerns intently and take them seriously. Consider preventive measures such as conducting regular “stay” interviews or employee engagement pulse surveys. Keeping your employees engaged requires continuous communication.
By maintaining an awareness of how your people are doing and how they feel about their work and roles in the organization, there will be more time and opportunity to engage your talent base. It could be easier to remedy employee issues as they come to surface, rather than continuously cycling through the talent attraction and hiring process as a result of turnover.
Give Praise
Employees need encouragement and recognition. When employees do something right, show your appreciation by recognizing it. Congratulate them. Show them that you see their hard work. However do not praise employees for everything they do, only when they do something out of their daily work task, or when they complete a large project.
The end goal here is to create an encouraging, positive work environment. When employees feel respected, acknowledged, desired, and motivated, they are more likely to stay.
Set a Clear Career Path
If employees stay stagnate in one job for too long, there is a higher risk of them moving on to another corporation where there is higher chance of job advancement. Increasing their skills and knowledge means a move up the career ladder. Show your employees a clear career path or extend to them more responsibility in their current position.
Set a goal on how they can advance. Help employees advance by providing them with coaching, training and advising them on ways they can move up that corporate ladder. Give them opportunities to learn new skills and practice them
Develop a strong, creative pay and benefits package.
This goes beyond a generous salary with benefits which everyone expects. Ask your employees what kinds of benefits would be most meaningful to them, and then do your best to offer those perks or provide a flexible benefits plan. Try to avoid trendy items that won’t have an impact on long-term retention. Focus on benefits that will most likely make people stay with your company for the long haul.
Most organizations might think all their employees are happy and content but in this day and age, it really doesn’t take much to for their interest to be peaked by other corporations and worse still by one of your competitors that may be giving better benefits. Employee retention is key to making the wheels of an organization turn on a daily basis with no mishaps; hence it is up to you to make attempts to improve your company’s efforts.
