Many challenges come with being a business owner and/or employer, including retaining quality employees. Unfortunately, having a low employee retention rate can be disastrous for your business. In this article, we share our tips for reducing employee turnover.
The Impact Of High Employee Turnover
Having a high employee turnover can significantly impact your company, negatively affecting various aspects of the business, including your existing staff members, clients and your bottom line. Losing an employee often puts a strain on the rest of the team.
If you are regularly losing staff, it can lead to staff burnout and low morale. In addition, the process of recruiting, hiring and training a replacement is time-consuming and costly. Having a low staff retention rate can also damage your company’s reputation and make it more challenging to attract top talent when recruiting.
It can also affect the overall service that your customers/clients receive, as new team members may not be as familiar with your products and services.
How To Reduce Employee Turnover
Improving staff retention should be an important goal of any company that is struggling with high employee turnover. Here are our top tips:
Hire The Right Talent
The recruitment process can be lengthy and expensive. In 2019, Forbes magazine reported that employee turnover can cost 33% of an employee’s annual salary and that on average it takes 8-12 weeks to replace a candidate and a further 4-8 weeks for a new employee to reach full productivity mode.
To save time and ensure that you employ only the very best candidates, it may be worth using a recruitment agency. Recruitment specialists have access to a huge candidate pool and will handpick candidates that suit the job role and company.
Some specialist recruitment agencies are industry-specific, meaning they work with businesses within specific industries to find them the best talent. By hiring a recruitment agency, you can be assured that all the hard work is done for you, from screening potential candidates to helping with the onboarding process.
Communicate Frequently
Having regular one-to-one meetings with your team members enables you to better understand how you can help them achieve their career goals within your company. It also provides an opportunity for staff to share any concerns they may have. Encouraging open communication within your team can also improve workplace morale and build trust within the team.
Encourage Work-Life Balance
If the past few years have taught us anything, it is that work-life balance is not to be underestimated. Having a healthy work-life balance is crucial to our overall health and wellbeing. Studies have shown that candidates are more likely to apply for a job if the company offers perks and benefits such as flexible working, extra annual leave and extended maternity/paternity pay.
Recognise Hard Work
Happy employees are on average 12% more productive than unhappy employees. Recognising hard work is an effective way to improve employee productivity and reduce staff turnover. Creating a positive workplace that acknowledges and rewards achievements with benefits, perks and incentives will enable your team to thrive whilst increasing workplace productivity and motivation.
