How Can Employee Turnover Be Reduced?
Leadership Development

How Can Employee Turnover Be Reduced?

BH
Bonnie Hagemann • October 31 , 2022

Reducing Employee Turnover is Necessary for Your Business  

Reducing employee turnover in your business is vital to its success and your people.  

In today’s workforce, the Millennial generation is twice as likely as the Baby Boomer generation to quit and leave their jobs. With Millennials making up most of today’s workforce, businesses will need a practical and multifaceted approach to addressing and reducing employee turnover.  

Employee turnover is the rate at which employees leave a business. With the competitive marketplace, evolving workforce, and types of turnover possible, businesses should strive to gain greater awareness of employee needs and experience in their workplace. Learning how employee turnover affects your business, calculating a turnover rate, and understanding this rate, and how it can impact your business will be necessary for growth, success, and hiring and retaining top talent.  

Action from leadership will be needed to improve employee retention, and will further enhance the workplace, its benefits, and cultural health for both employees and the business. Reducing employee turnover is one of the best ways organizations can improve the health of their business. Nurturing an exceptional culture needs to be a top priority to keep your talent.  

Challenges with Turnover  

Reducing employee turnover can be a learning process in your business, especially with turnover fluctuation and the continuing great resignation. People are continuing to leave the workforce at rapid rates, so leaders must determine why and in what ways they can combat this change. The marketplace is more competitive than ever, so businesses must do their part to succeed and better understand their people, or risk losing business revenue, reputation, and their top talent.  

Leaders should utilize their power and competencies to gain information about their employee retention needs and make changes in initiatives, the hiring processes, and in improving their workplace culture and employee offerings. Employees desire great benefits, effective leaders, a healthy culture, and to be invested in and valued. If leaders fail to keep their employees happy and supported, they will risk losing these employees to other industries and companies who will. There is also a risk of harm to a business’s reputation, brand, and client partnerships. 

How to Reduce Employee Turnover  

Most businesses should consider a few approaches to reducing employee turnover. Despite the variation in industry circumstances, all business areas and settings need to focus on their people and creating the best culture possible.  

The following are strategies on how businesses can work to reduce employee turnover and further avoid bigger issues of turnover at their business: 

1. Make Changes to the Hiring Process – According to the Harvard Business Review, 80% of turnover in the workplace can result from bad hiring decisions. Business owners, leaders, and human resource professionals should act in understanding the best hiring process and desired talent for their organizations. Knowing your business needs, its roles, and what skillset and talent will help your organization thrive can help to bring the right people, personalities, and skillsets into your culture.  

Screening candidates will always be important before bringing them into your business. Not every individual is the best fit for your company and its goals, so recruitment and retaining practices will be important for this success. Your culture, vision, and business goals should be clear, and your people should be able to clearly identify these too. Transparency, asking the right questions, and vetting the right candidates for the job will be one of the greatest ways to ensure you and your potential talents are a good fit together for the future. A company is no more than its people, so having these processes from the beginning of your business will be critical to best prevent turnover issues.  

2. Gaining Employee Feedback – Gaining insight and feedback from current employees and employees leaving your organization is a great way to learn more about your business and its culture. Your people are your biggest asset; therefore, they should be heard when it comes to their employee experience and needs.  

Employee engagement and retention surveys can be provided in your business to better understand how to reduce employee turnover. Exit interviews should be provided when an employee leaves. Exit interviews ask employees questions surrounding their experience, and the strengths and weaknesses of their environments, and to gain information on the reasons someone leaves an organization. Information from employees leaving can be of value in preventing further turnover issues from happening.  

Check out EDASurveys™, a one-stop shop enterprise surveys platform to gain insight into your business needs and culture. With 55 different surveys and templates, you’ll be able to find one that suits your needs. Surveys are great for learning your employees’ needs and workplace experience and can be an asset and tool for developing strategies to reduce turnover issues at your business. 

3. Creating a Healthy Culture and Environment in Your Business – Company culture is now more important than ever in today’s marketplace. Culture is one of the most vital areas of your business and employees will be impacted by many factors surrounding business culture. A healthy, conducive, and positive workplace will provide employees with a better overall workplace experience, leading to happier and more productive employees. A healthy culture and leaders who promote this will improve employee retention rates and reduce the risks and issues of employee turnover.  

4. Improving Communication – One of the biggest impacts on employee turnover at a business is communication. Leaders should strive to be clear and concise and focus to improve communication in all areas. Excellent vertical and horizontal communication will help a workplace become more cohesive and collaborative. Collaboration improves the effectiveness and efficiency of a business and its necessary interpersonal relationships. It helps to promote an open and healthy culture of conversation and engagement. If communication is lacking, this can cause issues with business goals and structure. It will also lead to employees feeling less seen, heard, and valued in their work roles.  

Without strong communication in all areas of a business, employee turnover will likely increase. Transparency and including employees in all efforts and initiatives will add value to their experience and their work. This also can result in employees engaging more and having a larger desire to be more involved in the team and as an asset to the business. 

5. Employee Training and Development – One of the most desirable benefits an organization can offer its employees today is effective training and development. Employee motivation, morale, and overall skill set can increase with additional training and development initiatives. This is a great way to invest in your employees and their growth, abilities, and talent.  

If employees do not feel they are being invested in, they are more likely to find a business that will invest in and better value them. Training and development, whether it is by external services or by creating an internal department, can result in greater value and opportunity. Effective training and development programs will be a win-win for both a business and its employees. Dedicating time and effort to your talent will enhance your talent and can lead to new leaders, innovations, and greater success and goal accomplishment for your business.  

6. Top-of-the-line Benefits – Businesses are evolving their workplace practices in all industries, so it is important a company stays on top of its own objectives and offers them to its employees. Employees desire work-life balance and flexibility in their working environments. Providing this will be an attractive and important way to reduce turnover. Hybrid work environments, flexibility in working hours, time off, and more are all desirable benefits employees wish to see. Providing employees and incoming talent with great compensation, good benefits, and other opportunities to enhance their well-being and skills in the workplace will improve employee morale and job satisfaction. This improvement will yield better retention rates and reduce the risk of an employee leaving for a better position or benefits elsewhere.  

Conclusion

Increasing employee retention and reducing employee turnover will be critical for all businesses to thrive in both the marketplace and in hiring and retaining top talent. Paying attention to these needs will cost your business less and will ensure stability in your business culture and its people. There are several ways leaders can gain awareness of employee turnover, its rate and impact, and both its short-term and long-term risks to their business. Leaders should enhance their skill set, competencies, efforts, and efficiencies in the workplace to create the most compelling culture and a healthy workplace experience for their employees. Employees deserve top-of-the-line treatment, benefits, and opportunities for growth and success in their careers, and businesses will need to take action to ensure this if they wish to retain the best possible talent for their business and its future.   

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