According to PBS, Over 25 million people left their jobs in the first 7 months of 2021.  At the end of July, there were 10.9 million job openings (a record).  The most recent data for August shows 10.4 million openings across the country.  This is officially an employee’s job market. If you don’t want your valued employees to be part of what is now being called, “The Great Resignation,” it is imperative that you understand how to keep your employees and reduce employee turnover.  

Employee Turnover measures the rate at which employees leave their job.  This can be measured by department, job title, or over a period of time.  For example, you can compare how many employees leave within the first year of employment versus those that leave between years 2-5, 6-10, etc.  You can compare different departments, job titles, or time in job to see if there are any correlations that can be seen.  

Once you have this information, and have been able to do some analysis, you can utilize it to assist in developing a great Employee Retention Program. Employee Retention Programs include proactive actions as to what your business is doing to keep your employees happy.  These actions help you ensure more employees stay at an organization. Employee Turnover and Employee Retention are certainly intertwined, and many reasons why an employee stays is the opposite of why they might leave. If you want to Reduce Employee Turnover, there are a few things that you can do to work on this right away.     

1. Conduct Interviews for Exiting & Existing Employees

People choose to stay and leave organizations for a variety of reasons. Creating a policy of conducting interviews for both current and exiting can give you a perspective that is tough to gain as a business owner. Both should be done with an impartial person so the employee feels comfortable being honest if there are any concerns about the workplace. You can discover what they enjoy about working there, improvements that can be made, and what their future career goals are to see if you can train them to be ready for their next move – like an internal promotion. You can even find out how to proceed with the next C’s on this list!

2. Compensation Needs to Be Competitive & Equitable

Ensure that you are competitive in your total compensation package you are offering to your employees.  This includes base pay, bonuses, PTO, Benefit and 401k contributions.  If your employees can make significantly more money somewhere else, they are more likely to leave.  Additionally, it is imperative that you conduct a salary audit in your organization.  This will ensure that all current (and future) employees are compensated based on the number of years of experience and education they have for that specific role.  Those with more experience and education should be higher in the range than those who have less.  Every so often you need to adjust people to bring them to where they need to be in the range.

3. Create a Positive Company Culture

Company Culture is often very influential when a potential candidate is considering a new position, and the same goes for employees who might leave. If your employees enjoy their coworkers, feel respected and valued, and are able to contribute to the success of the organization while feeling like their skills are utilized, they are more likely to stay.

4. Celebrate & Reward Your Employees

Really show appreciation for the work that employees are doing.  This is true for all employees, but especially if the work is mundane or transactional.  Tie their work directly to the Mission/Vision/Values of the Company so employees see the direct impact their work has on the success of the organization.  Additionally, create a program where peers, managers and directors can recognize employees for a job well done.  Furthermore, tie that recognition to rewards.  It can be bonuses, but can also be small gift cards for a favorite lunch or coffee spot.

5. Calibrate Your Company’s Training Process

Sometimes, when you have a new hire, you feel that you don’t have time to train that person.  It is really important that you are able to identify someone (even if it’s not you) or a group of people to adequately train and orient a new hire. If someone spends months without knowing what to do, chances are they are going to leave as soon as they have a chance.

6. Certify Work Life Balance

Most everyone is looking for a good work life balance.  This is especially true as we are still in and slowly coming out of the pandemic.  Not only is it necessary during this time, but people have gained a greater sense of wanting to work to live, not live to work.

7. Create as Many Perks as Possible

Your business may not be able to pay the most, or offer the best benefits as a competitor down the road.  That doesn’t mean you can’t get creative in offering perks for your employees that are outside of your standard compensation package.  Perhaps you can offer work from home options, create a dog friendly work environment, offer wellness classes during lunch periods, create a quiet meditation room for employees to relax and recharge during their breaks, etc.  These little things can go a long way to ensure the happiness of your employees.

8. Constantly Review and Implement Changes and Improvements

If you are in communication with your employees while they are here, as well as understanding why they are leaving, you have a wealth of information at your fingertips.  The important thing is to understand what you’re doing well, and build on that.  You also need to understand how you can improve, and start making changes.  As these things happen, you should see your employee retention rate increase.  This in turn will become a recruitment strategy, as you can promote why your employees love working at your organization.  Employee retention positively affects your recruitment costs and efforts, directly impacting your bottom line.

If you need help with hiring, or creating an employee retention strategy, we are here for you.