Employee turnover is expensive. The quantifiable impact of losing an employee is large and broad, including the cost of covering vacant positions, onboarding & orientation costs, productivity ramp-up time, and loss of business due to decreased capacity. Multiply that by the number of employees lost to turnover, and the numbers get scary quickly.
So what’s the solution to stopping turnover? Well, for one – pay certainly matters. You have to be in the ballpark of the going rate in your local market. But you don’t have to pay top dollar, nor is that actually feasible in most cases.
The best workers on the market are increasingly looking for employment opportunities where they can grow as individuals and find genuine satisfaction in coming to work. So if you want to keep them from leaving, give them a reason to stay.
Give Employees A Reason to Stay
We continuously see the same factors at play in companies with low turnover and high employee satisfaction:
They’re treated like an individual
Check on your employees with regular frequency. Make sure they have the resources they need to do their job, and ask for feedback on how you can support them. But also take an interest in who they are outside of work, and ask about that, too.
They care about the company
This starts with a clear definition and understanding of the company values, and comes to fruition when employees are able to connect with leadership around those shared values.
For example, an employee who is passionate about conservation would feel a connection to a company who prioritizes sustainability in their everyday operations. A day of service beautifying a local park would be a great team-building activity that’s in alignment with those values and would strengthen that employee’s commitment to the organization.
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They’re doing their best work
Make sure new employees are set up for success by setting clear expectations from the beginning and providing robust training. Pair them with a buddy to learn cultural norms and to see live examples of how to do the job correctly. And compliment employees (both new and tenured) on exceptional quality work!
They see opportunity to grow
This all starts with regular conversations about each employee’s desire to learn and grow in the organization. Those desires will look different for everyone, and therefore require a certain amount of personalization. But if you’ve built these conversations into your culture by making personal growth and development a priority across the organization, not only will people stay, but others will be attracted to join.
They feel valued
This doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. In fact, many people don’t like or want the spotlight on them; they just need to know that you know they’re killing it. Whether that’s a face-to-face, individual thank you at their workstation or a company-wide cookout—regular appreciation for a job well-done goes a long way in making sure employees know they’re valued.
How to Get There: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate!
How do these ideas translate into action? Well, in a word: communication.
None of the above reasons to stay will ever emerge for the employee without regular, ongoing dialog and engagement between leadership and employees. Only 42% of employees strongly agree that leadership is effectively leading their orginization. Here are a few things you can start doing today to foster more communication across the organization.
- Conduct frequent one-on-one check-ins with all employees
- Collect (and act on) feedback
- Communicate in their language on their preferred channels of communication
- Create opportunities for employees to connect with leadership
- Set clear expectations about quality or work, established procedures, and participation in the culture
- Provide thorough and organized training
- Schedule regular career conversations with all employees
- Create a growth path for all employees, no matter how small your company is
- Show regular appreciation for a job well-done
- Recognize employee birthdays and work anniversaries
Create Structure to Ensure Regular Communication
One individual person can’t be responsible for doing this across the entire organization, so you’ll need to rely on supervisors and managers to distill this cultural shift down to the frontline. Make sure your leadership knows this should be a priority for everyone.
Reinforce the importance by creating structure around these goals. For example, the expectation could be quick one-on-ones twice per week for the first 2 months, then once per week for the next 2 months. This will look different for each department, but what matters is that everyone is setting aside dedicated time for these conversations to occur on an ongoing basis.
Keeping track of all this—birthdays, work anniversaries, one-on-ones, annual reviews, feedback surveys, employee recognition—is a lot to handle. To do it in a scalable, efficient, repeatable way, you’ll need the support of employee engagement software. Most importantly, the automation that software provides will ensure all these things happen with consistency, which is the key to getting them to stick.
Author Bio: Danielle is the Content Marketing Manager for Team Engine where she creates tools and resources to recruit, engage and retain deskless workers. In her spare time, she writes about immersive entertainment and manages marketing operations for a seasonal haunted house. Danielle lives in Denver, CO with her husband and two dogs where she enjoys year-round outdoor recreation including camping, hiking, backpacking and snowshoeing.
