How to Reduce Employee Turnover

Reducing turnover and retaining employees are key priorities for any HR team. Finding and training new talent is a time-consuming and expensive process, which is why HR teams must make it a priority to retain employees. Employee retention is more than just salary and benefits, it’s a comprehensive approach that requires thoughtful recruitment processes, competitive compensation packages, professional growth opportunities, employee appreciation programs, an investigation of employee grievances, and creating a positive work environment.

Thoughtful Recruitment

The recruitment process is the first interaction between the potential employee and the organization. It's essential to ensure that the candidates align with the mission, understand the challenges of the role, and genuinely want to contribute to the organization. The recruitment process should consider a variety of factors beyond education and experience. The recruitment team should also consider the candidate's personality, values, work ethic, and communication skills.

Consider a more extended recruitment process and assign a team member to take ownership of the candidate’s candidate experience. The longer process allows the candidate to interact with more employees, which increases the chances of assessing the employee’s fit with the company. It’s also essential to provide feedback to candidates promptly so that they feel valued during the process.

Competitive Compensation

Offering fair and competitive compensation packages is an essential part of retaining employees. A fair payment structure might vary according to the region, company culture, and industry. Therefore, HR teams must benchmark their salaries annually to ensure that they stay competitive in the market and especially above minimum wage. Companies with smaller budgets must maintain compensation competitiveness by offering unique benefits packages such as flexible work arrangements, generous paid time off, wellness programs, educational opportunities, and professional development programs. With MegaPay, your team can also access their pay before payday.

Professional Growth

Many employees leave an organization looking for professional growth opportunities. HR teams should focus on offering training, educational programs and encourage employees to invest in their development by providing learning resources and creating a culture of feedback and support.

Discuss career goals with employees, provide them with a path to progress, upskill, and reskill. A career path provides employees with a sense of purpose, and a path to progression and a sense of fulfillment in the organization.

Employee Appreciation

Effective employee appreciation programs go a long way in creating a positive culture in the workplace. Build a culture of gratitude, appreciation, and optimism. It’s essential to create a work environment that encourages employee engagement and recognizes their contributions.

Effective appreciation programs can help businesses retain their employees, more so when employees feel acknowledged in custom ways.

Examples of excellent employee appreciation programs include bonuses, equity, gift cards, team bonding/retreats, and awards/certifications for significant achievements.

Investigate and Address Employee Grievances

Engagement surveys, stay, and exit interviews help organizations understand why employees quit and identify common themes. Though the reasons for leaving may vary, finding common themes helps organizations address the problems within the company.

A stay interview is a proactive way to identify potential employee retention issues before they occur. Stay interviews provide employees with a platform to be heard and provide feedback to their managers. The feedback serves as a proactive means of finding out what the employee would like to see changed within the organization and what they appreciate. Here are 13 questions to ask in a stay interview.

Exit interviews, on the other hand, are carried out after the employee has left. The purpose of the interviews is to identify why the employee left and either address or improve the situation that caused the employee to leave.

Surveys and interviews should be easy to access and offer the option of providing anonymous feedback.

Positive Work Environment

A positive work environment goes a long way in encouraging employee retention. An excellent work environment should value the quality of work produced by employees instead of the number of hours they spend at work. Beyond that, the work environment should also:

• Facilitate healthy work-life balance
• Identify and eliminate negative vibes such as bias, discrimination, and toxic environments
• Foster healthy relationships between employees and supervisors/managers.

Creating a work environment that values employees as individuals and appreciates the role that each person plays within the organization is vital in encouraging employee retention.

Reducing turnover and retaining employees requires ongoing engagement and investment in employees. By building meaningful relationships, providing attractive compensation and benefits, fostering professional growth, offering employee appreciation, assessing and addressing employee grievances, and creating a positive work environment, organizations can create a work culture that promotes employee longevity. These practices not only help build long-term loyalty but also positively impact the business’s bottom line.