How to create a bright future with your employees. Top 4 ways of reducing the employee turnover rate in a company
In the highly competitive market corporations across the world need to face the problem of a high employee turnover rate. Employees come and go reaching the best opportunities to carve their career paths. Is there a way to reduce the employee turnover rate in your company? Find out in the article.
The immensity of job opportunities drives employees’ appetites to seek the best work environment for self- and career development. While it’s good that more and more options are available for job seekers across the world, there’s the other side of this coin. Big corporations suffer constant employees rotation which may contribute to a decrease in the company’s performance. The need to reduce the employee turnover rate becomes clear. Otherwise, companies face various kinds of loses.
Luckily, there are a couple of easy to implement ways of reducing employee turnover rate. They include different employer branding strategies and can significantly lower the percentage of your team members leaving the company. But let’s start from the beginning – why is so important to keep your employees close and in the company?
Employee turnover cost – a team member is not the only thing you lose
You probably know the scenario – you hire young talent, you pay for the training, your team integrates and go through the already arranged process. Then, out of nowhere, the employee quits. And so the described circle starts again. This situation not only costs you one person from your team but also generates additional costs – an employee turnover cost, which includes both material and immaterial loses. Take a closer look at the main cons of a high employee turnover ratio.
The Tale about the endless recruitment process
The first, and may I say the most resources engaging thing, is the necessity to constantly maintaining the recruitment process. The company is forced to keep the recruitment open for new candidates to fill the employment gaps.
Now, think about the resources you need to use while keeping the HR department in the wings. Recruitment applications, interviews to carry – it all requires money and time of your employees. When the recruitment process becomes permanent and ongoing it automatically becomes a fixed cost to include in your budget. Not to mention that its quality suffers when you HAVE TO hire someone all the time.
The Tale about the efficiency decrease
When one link breaks, even the most solid chain will break down. The same can be said for well-structured teams in the company. When working together people learn how to collaborate and make the processes smooth. Your employees find their ways to be the most efficient both as individuals and as a team which, eventually, reflects on the company’s performance.
Imagine, when one element of this well-oiled machine decides to go work for another team. The morale goes down, the process is broken, a new person needs to fill in, the team needs to find a new way to be efficient. This will require time, during which the company’s performance suffers.
The Tale of a lost know-how
While hiring individuals you provide them with the finest knowledge. You take care of their development and make sure they learn new skills. Also, you introduce them to the company’s culture, processes, mechanisms and all those little internal secrets shared between the employees. The purpose of this all is to gain a loyal and professional employee to work towards the company’s success. And then they simply fly away, taking everything they learned to your competitors. Well, this one speaks for itself – now, let’s go reduce the employee turnover rate.
What matters in the game of keeping your employees by your side?
Many would think that the remedy for the growing employee turnover cost is to simply give employees more money. While this idea will definitely help you keep team members by your side, competitive pay is not enough these days.
To reduce employee turnover rate you need to think more comprehensively. Competitive pay won’t make your employees feel like they’re in the right place. Also, it won’t give them the idea that their work is important as well as it won’t drive them to achieve common company’s goals. Here you’ll need to think about employer branding strategies. Do you have any? How does it work for you so far? Employees who don’t feel appreciated, don’t identify with the company’s values and don’t see the benefits of working for you, will leave you for the place more coherent with their vision of a perfect workplace. Therefore it’s vital to get their feedback and listen to their needs in order to nurture a long and loyal relationship with them.
When you keep in mind your employer branding strategies, there’s a couple of things you can do to be sure your employees will want to work for you. Here’s the list of TOP 4 ideas with ready takeaways on how to implement them in your team.
Top 4 ways of reducing the employee turnover rate in your company
#1 Hire the right people
Often, the turnover is caused by the flawed recruitment process. People hired for the wrong positions or those who misjudged the company and end up disappointed – those are the employees most likely to quit. Therefore, to reduce the employee turnover rate you have to make sure that you hire the right people who have the potential to stay with you for long.
This advice may seem like a cliché but trust me – the way you choose your future employees has a strong influence on the turnover ratio. Now, it’s important to understand that ‘the right’ person won’t always be the most skilled and experienced one. During the recruitment process, you should determine whether the candidate is a good fit for your company’s culture and the rest of the team. Corresponding values and the feeling of belonging to the working society is as important as owned skills and is definitely the factor that will keep the employee in the team.
Takeaway:
The hiring process as we know it is yesterday’s business, believe me. Formal meetings with the resume placed on the desk shouldn’t be the only way you use to find the right candidate. Instead, you should try less serious encounter with potential employees. Events are considered one of the most effective recruitment methods exactly because they let you see ‘the real’ face of candidates. Throw a party during which you’ll get some applications. Let your candidates see what your company is like from the inside or delegate employees to chat with candidates at job fairs. This way you’ll have another important piece of information to decide whether they are good for the job not only experience-wise but also will they fit well within your team? Remember, keeping employees starts with hiring them right.
#2 Give your employees support in completing their personal goals and other benefits
As I mentioned before, the pay isn’t everything. You need to give your employees more reasons to stay with you than just money, which they can earn elsewhere. Learn what your employees like, what would add additional value to their working for you. Determine directions in which your team want to evolve and provide the ways to do it. Grants for innovative projects, free workshops, access to tools that would allow employees to gain new skills. These are the things that will help your team with self-development and, at the same time, will show your support for their personal aims as an employer.
Moreover, things like health insurance, sports subscriptions or cinema tickets will make your team feel appreciated and will show that you care not only for how their duties are done but also how they feel in free time. This form of addition to salary will automatically make it more attractive for employees. At the same time, you not only put your employer branding strategies to work, but you also get a great feeling of appreciation from your employees, making it this much harder for them to leave your company when the opportunity arises.
Takeaway:
When learning about the personal goals of your team members, try to look for conferences, workshops or special activities that would help them improve desired skills. Don’t be afraid to lose some of their working time as they will use it to gain knowledge that will help your company to perform better.
Then, if you want to offer your team something different than your competition – look for local attractions to cooperate with. However, don’t forget to gather proper feedback on your teams’ interests. Your HR guys are movie fans – grab them free cinema tickets once in a while. Programmers who enjoy long Counter-Strike sessions may as well enjoy being given discounts in local Laser Paintball center. It’s not so hard to make your team feel good with the company, you just have to know where to look!
Unexpected happenings are also more than welcomed! Just look what happened at Salesforce headquarters one morning:
#3 Show your team you trust them
Mutual trust is the basis of long and valuable relationship, also between the employer and his employees. A common reason for leaving companies among the employees is a lack of trust from the supervisors. After all, no one likes to be controlled all the time and having supervisors watching your every move doesn’t boost comfort. That’s why it’s important to cut your team some slack and allow more flexible working model.
These days employees, especially the younger ones, value the possibility to work remotely. Flexible working hours are considered one of the most desired options for the job offer. Therefore if you’re thinking about reducing the employee turnover rate think about being more favorable for your employees’ time needs. As long as the work is properly done, let them feel like the work is for them and not the other way around.
Takeaway:
Think about giving an option to use a fixed number of days employees can work remotely each month. They’ll feel like you trust them that the work will be done. As a result, their comfort of work will increase and it’ll be harder for them to leave your team. If you feel like going all the way with your trust this radical approach from Ricardo Semler may interest you:
#4 Nurture the relationships within the company
Last but definitely not least – maintaining the relationship within the team. What would keep your employees in the company more than the positive feeling of belonging to the community? Of course, the way you do this need to correspond with your corporate culture, have clearly defined boundaries, so that no one would cross the line. A well-integrated team is more willing to show up at work and increase the efficiency of work. Friends within the company become yet another added benefit of working for a certain company. Using some employer branding strategies such as office parties or in-house competitions or simply providing open spaces for employees, you encourage bonding and creating important relationships. Those can later result in loyal employees who’ll stay with you for better and for worse.
Takeaways:
Engage your team in events that will support getting to know each other. Look for opportunities such as holidays to throw an office party where teams will be able to strengthen the ties in a more casual setting. Not sure your employees will be willing to show up to the office after hours? Give your team a day (or more!) off and organize a company retreat to the countryside. They’ll get some fresh air and there’s a good chance they’ll appreciate their team even more.
Wrap up
While these are just examples of what can you do to reduce the employee turnover rate, you surely see that you can get creative here and come up with ideas that will suit your company. Also, you might notice that they focus on less material aspects of working.
Therefore, remember to engage in employer branding strategies to improve your employees’ level of satisfaction with the working environment. After all, reducing employee turnover rate means reducing the cost!
Do you have your ways to keep employees by your side?
