Studies have shown that employers prefer to employ someone who is already in employment over someone unemployed. But this means that another employer is about to lose a member of their staff.
This means that all businesses need to work hard at retaining their best employees. Losing any worker can be disruptive, and the business is then faced with the costs of recruitment and the loss of institutional and customer knowledge.
High employee turnover impacts a business’s profitability and can also affect customer satisfaction, plus it is costly to recruit new staff. Every leaver should be asked to take part in an exit interview so the business can understand the reasons for leaving and find ways to fix addressable problems.
Excessive employee turnover is preventable. Here are the main reasons employees leave.
An employee has no purpose – they work just because it is a job to do. But businesses that have a strong mission have more motivated employees who live the business brand.
Low Pay – it’s been found that workers who change jobs earn on average an extra 5.2%. If your pay rates and benefits are near the top of the scale it makes it more difficult for competitors to lure away your employees. Ensure you apply annual pay increases. Pay rates are the easiest way for employees to gauge how much you value them and their efforts. So, unsurprisingly, underpaying what an employee feels they are worth is the number one reason they move on.
Being overworked – when employees feel they are performing tasks without appropriate resources to be successful, they feel a lack of control and consistently face more daily stress than they can manage. A combination of emotional and physical exhaustion with a sense of hopelessness and self-blame, manifests in behavioral and physical issues, commonly referred to as burnout. Ensure all employees have enough resources to do their job and that their workload can be achieved in the hours they are paid to work.
Bad managers – while some bad managers take credit for the work of others or play favorites, more commonly it is because they are just bad at managing others. Good managers know the ability of their staff and uncover their skills and motivations, capitalizing on them for the good of the business. Bad managers don’t do this and fail to get the best out of their staff or demotivate staff by criticizing perceived underperformance.
Little feedback or recognition – employees who receive positive feedback rarely seek employment elsewhere. The only thing worse than bad feedback is no feedback at all. When employees lack guidance bout their performance or how to develop their skills, they feel they have no direction and no future with the business.
No opportunity for growth and development – if there are few opportunities for promotion, the next best thing is providing career development opportunities to get better at what the employee does or to learn new skills and move into different departments. Without this, the employee can be left to feel as if they will be doing the same daily tasks forever, and that doesn’t encourage them to stay where they are long term
Toxic Work Culture – it has been reported that as many as 25% of US workers dread going to work! Many of the reasons are caused by a combination of the previous issues mentioned but can also include poor relationships with workmates with issues like bullying and harassment raising their heads. When employees feel included, respected, and empowered to do their job without being micromanaged turnover is usually low.
Viewing the Corporate Business Solutions Reviews you will find businesses with good staff retention rates.