What are the best ways to tackle employee turnover?

Employee Rentention

Employee turnover is an indicator of how many staff members are leaving a company or organisation over the course of one year. Not only can organisations measure their overall employee turnover rate, but they can also assess individual departments, teams and particular demographic groups to determine if any category of the workforce may be leaving more often than others.

Excessive employee turnover is a costly and time consuming problem for companies of all sizes. In order to tackle employee turnover, it is important to understand why people are leaving in the first place.

Once you know why people are leaving, you can assess these factors to implement solutions, which can help reduce employee turnover and keep employees engaged and motivated.

By developing an understanding of what drives your employees to leave, you are able to develop a successful, employee retention strategy. Dealing with your employee turnover reduces the high recruitment costs and reduced levels of productivity from numerous staff changes.

Employees working environment

We want to help you tackle and understand excessive employee turnover, so this blog is going to discuss:

How does employee turnover affect a company?
What is the average employee turnover rate?
How to manage employee turnover?

We hope it gives you a better understanding of employee turnover, why it’s important and how you can tackle it.

How does employee turnover affect a company?

A high employee turnover indicates a high number of employees within your workforce are leaving.  This can have a negative impact on productivity, customer service, staff morale and your organisation’s culture. A high turnover rate may also be linked to problems in management, recruitment processes or low employee engagement levels.

Employee turnover can have a significant impact on a company’s ability to stay competitive and maintain productivity. 

When employees leave, their knowledge and experience goes with them, requiring the need for further recruitment and training which requires time and financial investment. Additionally, when you are noticing a repeat pattern in employee resignations, it can be difficult to build positive working relationships within the workplace, as well as a productive team environment.

Therefore, if your company does experience a high employee turnover rate, the causes for this should be identified and dealt with.

What is the average employee turnover rate?

The average employee turnover rate can vary greatly depending on the industry, size of the business and region. Generally, it is estimated that the average UK business turnover rate is around 15%. However, if you are in an industry where competition for talent is high, such as IT or healthcare, the turnover rate can be much higher.  Indeed, recent figures we’ve seen confirm the following industry specific turnover rates:

  • Technology: 18.3%
  • Manufacturing: Over 20%
  • Retail: 57.3%
  • Banking / Finance: 18.6%
  • Healthcare:
    • Hospitals: 19.5%
    • Nursing Homes: 94%
    • At-Home Care: 65.2%

How to manage employee turnover?

Now we have all the information, we need to know how to manage employee turnover. 

If you are a business struggling with a high employee turnover, here are five changes you can make:

1. Offer competitive salaries, benefits and incentives

This is a great way to make sure you are able to attract and retain the best talent. 

Consider offering a competitive salary and benefits such as flexible working, health insurance and other perks. Incentives such as bonuses and performance related pay can also be effective as they encourage employees to stay and become more invested in supporting the growth of your company.

2. Improve your recruitment process

This is something you might not relate to employee turnover, however, making sure that your interview process is thorough enough to find the right fit for your company’s culture and values is crucial. 

This will ensure you are able to hire the right people and reduce employee turnover rate.

Employee Interview

3. Enhance professional development opportunities

Give your employees the chance to develop and grow within their roles by offering training and career progression opportunities. This will help to create a sense of job security and satisfaction, resulting in lower turnover rates. 

Employees will feel the current role allows them to fulfill their ambition and enhance their careers, reducing their reason to leave.

4. Make sure you are listening to your staff

Having regular meetings with your staff to see if there are any issues that need to be addressed, can help you minimise the risk of any potential future problems. 

Listening to your staff’s needs and worries is crucial, but what is more important is taking action on their problems. Doing so, highlights you have listened to them and shows you value them.

5. Encourage a positive work environment

Offer flexible working hours, team building activities, and create a supportive culture where employees feel valued.  This will help foster a strong working relationship and build morale. 

A supportive work environment will also make employees more likely to stay in their roles and reduce the employee turnover rate.

Positive work environment for employees

By reading this article you are already taking the first, necessary steps in helping reduce high employee turnover rates.

Employee turnover can have serious consequences for businesses if it is not managed correctly. However, with the right strategies in place, businesses can better understand the reasons behind this and take steps to reduce it.

Image by senivpetro on Freepik

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