It’s expensive to hire new employees! It’s not just the salary expenses– there are benefits to be paid and costs associated with the recruitment and employee onboarding process. Organizations must also prepare for learning curves with new hires; it can take up to two years for a new hire to reach full productivity in the company.
Despite all of these obstacles, companies should do everything in their power to minimize employee turnover as much as feasibly possible.
As much as this may seem out of an organization’s control at times, there are numerous reasons employees leave a company. Some of these are simple; others are more complex and nuanced– we won’t be covering the more complicated issues behind employee turnover. This is because if any of the following exist in your organization, your time is best spent perfecting these processes first.
Here are the four (easy to fix) reasons your organization’s employee turnover is high:
1. Staff Is Worked to the Bone
Research has proven time and time again that employees feel like they don’t have enough time during the week to do their jobs. It’s not just like it’s a small group in the workforce that feel this way, either. A whopping 70% of employees feel as though they don’t have enough time during the week.
This is significant, and it costs organizations money hand over fist. Having too much on their plates isn’t the greatest morale booster– it leads to burnout. Overworked staff is much more likely to jump ship in favor of company cultures that promote work-life harmony.
Fix It With the Quickness:
Prioritize refining workflow systems to ensure that work is distributed evenly throughout the organization. If you’re unsure if the employees at your company are overworked, the easiest way to make that determination is to ask them. You can utilize anonymous corporate pulse surveys to gather data to determine if your employees feel they are responsible for too much work every week. If you find that the bulk of your workforce feels overworked, it might be time to hire new employees or lift the burden with freelancer help.
2. Employees Receive Different Treatment
When managers play favorites and treat employees differently, it quickly becomes problematic. It’s only a matter of time before resentment sets in with other team members.
Fix It With the Quickness:
It needs to be ingrained into your company culture that everyone is treated equally. No favorites allowed. Rules need to be generalized and across the board– no exceptions or you risk drawing the ire of your staff.
3. Surprise, Employees Like Making Money!
Research shows that nearly a quarter of workers would not hesitate to leave their jobs for a 10% raise with another company. If your company offers low compensation with little room to grow, employee turnover will be high as staff will be on the lookout for better pay elsewhere.
Fix It With the Quickness:
It costs organizations a tremendous amount of money to replace employees, making it more cost-effective to offer regular pay increase incentives. Some organizations have found great success with implementing a salary transparency policy– allowing every employee to know what others are making, which is helpful in keeping employees happy.
4. The Organization’s Culture Is Toxic
Office culture strongly correlates with an organization’s workforce happiness. This has a wide-reaching impact throughout the company– when employees love their company’s culture, they’re happier and more productive. When the culture is toxic, the inverse is true– increasing the likelihood that employees will bail.
Take a moment and look around your organization, do people seem genuinely happy? Are they just going through the motions, or is this an environment conducive to great work?
Fix It With the Quickness:
If the organizational culture leaves something to be desired, it’s important to be proactive and takes steps to improve it. Rely on your staff to guide the best way forward. Listening to your employees and their concerns is the best way to improve not only company culture but employee turnover rates by making staff feel heard and validated.
If your organization is experiencing high turnover, it’s highly likely that at least one of these scenarios holds weight in your organization and can be relatively easily remedied.
The good thing is that you can enact changes in your company that will encourage your workforce to stick around for the long haul. Get these problems under control and watch your employee retention stats start to improve.