A reasonable amount of employee turnover is natural in any company. People are leaving their jobs for any number of reasons that can’t be accounted for or corrected. Still, you may find yourself looking at a higher than normal average turnover rate within your own organization.
While this may not seem like a big deal on it’s own, it could have negative repercussions for your company in the future. Which, in the
current talent shortage, is not something you want to deal with. It falls on you, or your human resources department, to make sure that your organization is keeping employees happy.
This means finding ways to increase job satisfaction, employee engagement, and work life balance. In essence it just means making sure that your employees are happy. Which will not only help your annual turnover rate, but improve productivity as well.
Why Employees Are Leaving Your Organization
A high turnover rate occurs when there is an influx of people leaving a company, usually more than expected. Some factors that can drive
employee turnover include stress, job satisfaction, and leadership. No matter the reason, a high turnover rate can cause unnecessary stress and could be detrimental to the success of a company.
What is causing employee dissatisfaction within your organization could spring from any number of factors. One of the most impactful factors is just the workers demographic. They may be leaving because of their marital status, age group, or tenure. Which there isn’t much you can do to solve.
You can keep an eye out for common indicators that might signify dissatisfaction. If you notice that an employee is commonly late, absent, or lacking in performance it might mean they are considering a change of pace.
Why A High Employee Turnover Rate Is A Problem
When hiring new employees, companies invest time and money into training and onboarding these individuals — So, high turnover rates can have a direct impact on financials. In fact,
employers will need to spend the equivalent of six to nine months of an employee’s salary in order to find and train their replacement.
Having a high turnover rate can also affect overall employee morale. Company culture is not just created by higher-ups & leadership — It’s influenced by every employee. So when a lot of these employees are picking up and leaving, it will change the culture and often for the worst.
This could also ultimately affect what kind of talent your company can attract, which is just another negative implication that could harm a company’s success.
On top of this, a high turnover rate is a strong indicator that a majority of your employees are unhappy. A problem that most likely originates with senior management. This could come from who you are hiring or just what kind of culture you are creating. Either way, something is wrong and you need ways to figure out what that is.
Giving Your Employees A Voice
There are certain factors causing high turnover that might seem obvious once you think about it. After all, you know that nobody wants to consistently work long hours, but it is easy to overlook that for the sake of profit. Or maybe you just make the mistake of thinking that your employees would complain to you if something was wrong.
Which of course will happen, and probably before it’s too late for you to do anything about it. What you can to do to prevent a mass exodus is find out ahead of time how your employees are feeling about what they do, and the best way to do this is by talking to them.
If you run your organization, finding time to ask your employees about there jobs may seem like a waste of time, but it is critical to team morale. You don’t even have to be the one that does it. Send your human resources manager to connect with them on your behalf. The outcome will be largely the same, possibly even better since workers feel more comfortable logging their complaints without their boss around.
This is a great way to sniff out problems before they become disasters, and to just improve moral in general.
Improving Employee Job Satisfaction
When a high number of people are leaving a company, it may be time to take a look at why so many employees felt inclined to quit — it may have something to do with the way that the company is being run. Some ways that have been identified to help reduce high employee turnover include
updating your hiring strategy, offering a more competitive deal, and taking the time to listen to your employees.
Whatever the reason it is your job as a leader to make sure that everyone stays happy so that they can be productive. Make it clear that senior management cares about their concerns and is doing something to correct them. Do somethings just for the sake of building morale and unity, like taking your team out to lunch.
These are all great ways to make sure that your organization isn’t constantly hemorrhaging employees. All change has to start somewhere. It will look a lot better when it comes from you.
