By | Rodney Laws | Editor at Ecommerce Platforms
Employee turnover is something that all businesses have to deal with, as employees will naturally come and go over the years — some quicker than others. Despite this inevitability, high employee turnover can be very challenging for employers reliant upon workers sticking around for lengthy stints so they can pass on their skills before they leave.
If your employees are jumping ship too readily, you can end up putting huge amounts of time, money and effort into recruitment — meaning those resources can’t go towards business growth. And with your team changing all the time, new starters will form a negative impression of your working conditions, making them less content and less productive.
In short, then, it’s extremely important that you do what you can to prevent high employee turnover. In this piece, we’ll look at four tips for doing just that. Let’s get to them:
Offer competitive salaries and benefits
Pay is a huge factor in how quickly an employee moves on from your company. If you want to hold on to your best staff members and keep them motivated then paying them fairly (in line with their skill sets) is essential. Don’t think of your employees as financial burdens: instead, view them as long-term investments. The more you put in now, the more you’ll get.
But pay is only one part of this equation, because you also need to think carefully about benefits. Are you supporting flexible working through the provision of convenient remote setups? (More on this later.) Are you encouraging strong habits to support mental and physical health through add-ons such as gym memberships?
If you can offer good salaries and respectable sets of benefits (and ensure these things scale with inflation and career progression), your employees will feel valued. As a result, they’ll be far more likely to stick around and become fixtures of your business.
Recognize achievements and give praise
It doesn’t take much to congratulate your employees on their hard work, but so many employers overlook the importance of giving praise. Per AgileCRM, a company with a culture that strongly values learning and team achievements will have a 30-50% higher employee retention rate than one without it. That’s a massive difference.
Finding opportunities to provide one-on-one praise can give your employees some much-needed boosts and help them view your business as welcoming and supportive. In addition, look for moments to highlight achievements in monthly newsletters and company-wide calls. This will allow people to share successes big and small.
Hire the right people for the role
One of the most common reasons for an employee resigning is that they don’t enjoy their role or believe it’s the right fit. Is this unavoidable, or is there something you can do? Well, you can take action to make it less likely, but it has to start all the way back at the beginning of the recruitment process. It’s imperative that you take the time to find candidates who fit the role, your company culture, and your business goals.
And in this time of remote working and online operation, you have ample opportunity to broaden your recruitment horizons. Stop worrying about whether candidates live nearby. Look outside your area. You can even look outside your country: employer of record services like those offered by Remote take the administrative complications out of finding and onboarding international employees, allowing you to look for candidates everywhere.
Consider that this isn’t just about hunting down the people with the most relevant skills. It’s also about revitalizing your operation. The diversity offered by assembling people from drastically different backgrounds will yield new perspectives and ideas.
Create opportunities for training and progression
Feeling like they’re stuck in a role with nowhere to go will only encourage an employee to look elsewhere. You need to give each employee a suitable training program and plot a career path so they have aspirations to pursue — and to reach that point, you must first speak to them in an effort to determine what their personal goals are.
Is there a particular area they’d like to learn more about? Are they looking for more responsibilities? Working with them to deliver new opportunities will prove that you’re committed to investing in your employees, helping them to see the value of staying with your company in the long run.
