How to Reduce Employee Turnover

High employee turnover hurts a companys bottom line. Experts estimate it costs upwards of twice an employees salary to find and train a replacement. And churn can damage morale among remaining employees. Here are some ways to lower turnover in your workplace: Hiring the right people from the start, most experts agree, is the single best way to reduce employee turnover. Interview and vet candidates carefully, not just to ensure they have the right skills but also that they fit well with the company culture, managers and co-workers. Setting the right compensation and benefits is important too. Work with human resources to get current data on industry pay packages, and get creative when necessary with benefits, flexible work schedules and bonus structures. Review compensation and benefits packages at least annually. Pay attention to trends in the marketplace and have HR update you. Pay attention to employees personal needs and offer more flexibility where you can. Consider offering telecommuting, compressed schedules or on-site or backup day care. Bolster employees engagement. Employees need social interaction and a rewarding work environment. They need respect and recognition from managers, and a challenging position with room to learn and move up.

 Managers often overlook how important a positive work environment is for staffers, and how far meaningful recognition and praise from managers can go to achieve that. Awards, recognition and praise might just be the single most cost-effective way to maintain a happy, productive work force. Simple emails of praise at the completion of a project, monthly memos outlining achievements of your team to the wider division, and peer-recognition programs are all ways to inject some positive feedback into a workforce. Also, consider reporting accomplishments up the chain. A thank you note to the employee is good. Copying higherups makes that note even more effective. To make it easier to identify accomplishments, ask your team for weekly or monthly updates of their achievements. Ask for specific numbers, examples or emails of praise from co-workers or customers. Outline challenging, clear career paths. Employees want to know where they could be headed and how they can get there. Annual reviews or midyear check-ins are one obvious venue for these discussion, but you should also encourage workers to come to you with career questions and wishes throughout the year.

Top 7 Ways to Improve Employee Retention and Reduce Employee Turnover

By Greg Smith

[ Print | Email This | Bookmark ] Imagine--you have been working late to finish an important project when your project manager walks into your office and tells you she has been offered a better job. This is

the same person you handpicked, trained, and recently gave a pay raise. As she turns to depart she says, There are others thinking about leaving too. What went wrong? How are you going to finish this project? Who will be next to leave? The dread is starting to sink in. Employers face enormous challenges when they consider the increasing difficulty of finding skilled people, a more demanding younger workforce, and a growing population of older workers heading toward retirement. In the next 10 years, HR professionals expect three out of 10 employees in their organizations workforce to retire. The difficulty in finding and keeping talented people is having a catastrophic impact on many businesses and industries throughout the world. In addition to those retiring, surveys show one out of every three people plan on quitting their jobs this year. The greatest threat employers face is losing their best and brightest to the competition. Thats a lot of talent leaving organizations and just the beginning of what many people have described as the "perfect storm." Money and benefits are important, but studies show most employees leave for other reasons. Obviously, a certain degree of turnover is unavoidable, but with a small amount of effort organizations can make a major difference. Your retention plan should address the following key components. 1. Hire the best and avoid the rest. Cisco CEO John Chambers said, "A world-class engineer with five peers can out produce 200 regular engineers." At Yahoo they would rather leave a position open than hire the wrong person. Instead of waiting for people to apply for jobs, top organizations spend time looking for high-caliber people whether they have a job opening or not. 2. Redesign your orientation program for new employees. The old saying, "You don't get a second chance to make a good first impression" is true in this case. Organizations experience the highest level of turnover during the first 90 days on the job. The purpose of onboarding is to quickly assimilate the new person into the organization, so make the first critical days stand out as a positive experience. This is a great opportunity to make new hires feel proud to have chosen your organization. 3. Provide flexible work schedules adapted to the needs of the individual. In todays workplace, flexibility rules. A one-size-fits-all approach has long since lost its effectiveness. Workers will migrate to a company whose benefit packages and schedules help them meet the demands of their lives, whether they are single parents, adults who care for aging parents, older workers, younger workers, parttime workers, or telecommuters. 4. Provide career development. For many people, learning new skills and advancing their career is just as important as the money they make. In a study by Linkage, Inc. more than 40 percent of the respondents said they would consider leaving their present employer for another job with the same benefits if that job provided better career development and greater challenges. 5. Create an early warning detection system. Ask employees to let you know if they hear of people who are thinking about quitting. Advance notice will give you an opportunity to try to prevent the departure. One practice Applebee's put in place is the "Turnover Alert Form." It is designed to identify and prevent discontented managers from quitting. In those situations, Applebees brings the managers in to

meet with the CEO and possibly other executives. They want to identify and repair anything that might be causing job dissatisfaction. 6. Look for triggers. Focus on individuals going through some form of change such as marriage, pregnancy, divorce, a child's graduation, mergers, or other important events that could influence job satisfaction and/or persuade or force employees to leave the organization prematurely. 7. Identify and weed out poor managers. The relationship with the employees frontline manager is the most common reason people leave. As part of LaRosa's employee retention strategy, all workers evaluate their bosses twice a year using a special report card. It asks the employees to give their managers a letter grade from A to D in four categories. Any score less than a "B" requires a specific comment from the employee. After it's completed, they tabulate the comments and design action plans for improvement.

How to Reduce Employee Turnover

Edited byNicole Allard and 13 others Article EditDiscussHistory

If you want to have an effective hiring campaign, you have to think long term. When hiring new employees, it can be difficult to consider how they will benefit your organization for the long haul. Fortunately, there are a variety of ways to make sure you pick the right employees who will stay with your company. The following are instructions on how to prevent quick employee turn-around.
EditSteps

1. 1
Don't hire out of desperation. Do not just hire an employee because you needed someone to fill the position yesterday. That is what temporary employees are for. If you are looking for someone to fill the position long term, it is best to take some time to do your research. Gather as much information as you can about a job applicant. Information you would need is contact information for personal and business references, a list of past and present employers, social security number, birth date and more. These items will help you complete reference checks and to perform background checks to find out about any past criminal activity. Call on a reference. You are never too busy for that.

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2. 2
Offer skill testing. If you want to decrease employee turn-around, you can perform skill tests on your job applicants. You can either do this directly through your human resource department or you can contract this responsibility out to a job placement agency. This is one of the tools that will help you determine whether you have found the best fit for each position your company has open. Not only that, but it also cuts down on your new applicant recruitment costs. Every company has some form of testing or verification. Have a competition with it or an incentive.

3. 3
Profile For Temperament. Each job description should include a consideration of the social aspects of the job. Is the job task oriented or people oriented? Does the job require much interaction with the public? With other co-workers? Temperament profiles can predict which people are best suited for different types of work. Placing people with the right temperament for a particular job can go a long way toward creating stability.

4. 4
Pay competitive. If you've gone through the trouble of finding great candidates, you want to make sure you can persuade them to come on board and have them stay. Money is not the number one reason people come to a company or leave a company.

5. 5
Show appreciation. Many employees almost always know when they are doing a job wrong. However, these same employees very rarely ever hear from their employers when they are doing their job right. Encourage your employees by saying kind words to them, and telling how much of a good job they are doing. If you do that, they will be more likely to accept any words of advice on how to improve their work later on.

6. 6
Level the workload. Employees often leave companies because they feel overworked. It's frequently less expensive to hire an additional person, even part-time, than it is to replace a seasoned staff member. Often we complain about an individuals performance but no action is taken. That hurts existing employee morale as well.

7. 7
Hold regular review sessions. When employees are closely attached to their management team, they are more likely to feel involved. More involved employees tend to perform at a higher level and are more likely to achieve longer tenure. Talk to your employees. Keep them informed of new policies and procedures. Don't keep secrets. An informed and educated employee is much more effective.

8. 8
Do exit interviews. Labor laws suggest that we cannot hold a person from leaving. When an employee goes, he/she just has to go. It will be very beneficial to know the cause of why the employee chose to leave. Possible factors may be: a better job offer, pursuit for growth, poor colleague relationships, below average compensation, dislike for the nature of work, etc. Knowing what problems to address, and taking action on them, will eventually lessen turnover rates in the future.

19 Ways to Reduce Employee Turnover

Jul 31, 2007 10:42 AM, By Kathryn Jackson, Ph.D

Employee turnover is a fact of life in the contact center. The better armed you are with strategies the more effective you'll be at managing it. The strategies can help you reduce employee turnover. Brainstorm with your leadership team to whittle down this long list into a short, prioritized, "right for me" list:

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Include the appropriate skills and competencies in the job description

Use behavioral-based interviews to ensure candidates possess the attitudes, personality traits, and behaviors that ensure fit and promote commitment

Create a compensation policy (including pay tied to performance and variable pay) that supports the mission and culture of the organization

Market the call center internally to the rest of the organization

Implement career planning and development efforts that are tied to the organization's business objectives

Base promotions on performance

Demonstrate commitment to the employee's long-term development (job skills training and retraining - learning new skills for the present job and for redeployment); help employees take advantage of learning opportunities

Ensure that managers are skilled and effective coaches and facilitators

Offer flexible schedule adjustments showing respect for an employee trying to balance work, career, education, and community (job sharing, flex time, telecommuting, full time to part time and back again) and do it all without jeopardizing advancement opportunities Conduct confidential exit interviews, and analyze and use the data collected in the interviews

Provide a work environment that is productive and respectful, with a feeling of inclusiveness; offer a friendly, appealing, welcoming setting

Continually communicate the company mission, vision, and brand to employees; demonstrate how they contribute to each

Enhance employee engagement through team cohesion activities

Update your employee orientation to accurately reflect your expectations

Ensure that comprehensive change management is in place; include employees in change; eliminate abrupt changes

Provide tuition reimbursement, competitive vacation, competitive pay and holiday pay and / or bonuses

Improve your employee selection process

Customize an innovative reward program for functions and individuals

Build increased commitment through fairness, care, and concern for employees

Evaluate the companies designated as "Great Places to Work." These companies consistently experience a turnover rate that is half the national average. You may be able to steal some ideas from these leaders that will help you become an employer of choice.

Read more: http://multichannelmerchant.com/opsandfulfillment/turnover_employ/#ixzz1v7ZFdDYb