Good talent invariably comes in short supply, and the hiring process isn’t as easy or affordable as it was a few years ago. Leaders need to find effective ways to reduce employee turnover.
Retaining employees has become a challenging issue in recent years, with nearly 4 million workers quitting their jobs each month. Business owners and leaders are finding it tough to search for high-quality applicants and retain them for a long time after hiring. Employee retention is crucial to keep your business stable. You chart your success by understanding its significance and implementing effective measures to reduce the attrition rate.
What is Attrition Rate or Employee Turnover?
According to the Cambridge dictionary, "Attrition is the process of gradually making something weaker and destroying it." Workplace or employee attrition is analogous to that definition for employees at a workplace.
When an employee leaves an organisation, its attrition rate increases. Learning methods to control attrition can help you strengthen the internal functions of your company. In this blog, you will get to know about the causes, signs and effective techniques for managing it.
What Causes Employee Turnover?
Retention is affected by company culture, salary scale and employees remaining in the same professional position for too long.
Employees leave their organisations due to one or more of the following reasons:
● For more money and better benefits
● To gain a better work-life balance
● To progress in their careers
● Because their manager is ineffective
Signs of Disengagement in Employees
Leaders need to identify signs of employee disengagement early and respond timely with adequate solutions for reducing the attrition rate.
A few of the major tell-tale signs of employee disengagement are as follows:
● Withdrawn from collaborative activities with colleagues
● Reduction in their incoming and outgoing times
● Drop-in quality of work and productivity
● No appetite for challenge or responsibility
● Increased and frequent breaks in daily routine
● Increased and abrupt absenteeism
● Neutral (or negative) attitude at the workplace
You can learn a few more signs that indicate your employees may quit their job here.
Why is Increasing Employee Retention Important?
High employee turnover rates are disruptive to business growth and adversely impacts organisational productivity, so it’s important your organisation retain its employees for longer times. Lower attrition rates help in overcoming the leader’s dilemma by avoiding these five undesirable factors from occurring:
● Low efficiency
● Low engagement
● Poor customer service
● High employee turnover costs
● Negative impact on company culture
How to Reduce Employee Attrition Rate?
If you find yourself in a leader's dilemma about how to reduce employee turnover ratio or workplace attrition, here are fifteen powerful ways that can slow down the revolving door at your company.
1. Hire the right people. Poor recruitment leads to a high attrition rate. Make sure that you are looking for the right person from the beginning. Convey the potential candidates clearly about the organisation’s culture and how the company operates.
2. Appoint the right leadership. Leadership plays a defining impact on employees in creating a positive perspective for their organisation. If leaders are supportive and flexible, then they tend to continue their tenures for a longer time.
3. Offer competitive compensation and benefits. Pay and benefits are key reasons employees show up for work every day, and their disparity can make them leave their workplace too. Keep up with the market rate while offering compensation.
4. Recognize and reward employees. Simple notes of appreciation for the efforts employees put into their everyday tasks can go a long way. Creating a positive environment at the workplace makes employees feel acknowledged and inspired.
5. Closely monitor toxic employees. Trusting colleagues and leaders has a positive impact whereas toxic co-workers who are overly critical can push high achievers out of the organisation. Identify toxic people and address the problem before it’s too late.
6. Offer flexibility and give employees creative freedom. Giving your employees more flexibility and creative freedom are effective ways to boost retention. Although effectively managing remote workers has its own challenges, leaders can inspire them with effective tips to keep up productivity while working remotely.
7. Prioritise work-life balance. Poor work-life balance can lead to burnout that pushes employees to for another job opportunity. Flexible scheduling and remote work can help employees achieve a better work-life balance, which can boost retention.
8. Standardise performance reviews. Performance reviews from management and regular feedback from managers and colleagues are impactful in creating positive feelings that make employees stay at their workplace longer.
9. Prioritise professional growth. Invest in your workforce through skill development and training programs. These programs enhance their skill set, develop career paths, and enable them to grab opportunities. This phenomenon strengthens their loyalty towards the organisation.
10. Regular feedback to employees. Regular feedback helps employees in understanding their strengths and weaknesses. Constructive feedback provides them with the opportunity to become better performers.
11. Empowering employees through delegation. Delegation gives employees greater autonomy. It gives them sufficient time and the ability to focus on higher-level tasks.
12. Praise in public and criticise in private. Public praise tends to make the employees feel great, and it encourages them to do whatever they do with more motivation, whereas, criticism in public makes it harder for a person to accept they have made any mistake and to learn from it.
13. Providing learning and development opportunities to employees. Getting ample opportunity to learn new skills and gain knowledge makes employees feel valued and it translates into decreased employee turnover.
14. Periodic employee engagement surveys. Engagement surveys help leaders to assess employees’ passion and commitment for their job and organisation. Periodic employee engagement surveys give detailed insights into which areas your employees are thriving in and which areas they are lacking.
15. Analyse existing turnover to find issues and resolve them. Employee attrition is inevitable but you can work to reduce it. Collect and analyse turnover-related data in real-time and find effective solutions for retaining your best employees.
Focus on implementing these strategies to reduce employee turnover ratio or workplace attrition. Create a workplace where employees want to stay and make your business thrive.
Are you in the right job? Take the Free ‘Are You in The Right Career Assessment’ to identify whether you are in the right job and discover what type of jobs you will excel at. The results of this test will be your guide towards a successful career change.
Smita D Jain is a Certified Life Coach, Executive Coach and NLP Practitioner. Smita’s ‘Empower Yourself’ Personal Clarity Coaching Programs enable busy professionals unhappy in their jobs to tap into their passions and transform them into professions so that they work because they want to, not because they have to.
Before her journey as a coach, Smita had extensive experience of 14 years as a corporate and business strategy professional with Fortune 500 companies. She is also a speaker at various public forums, a published writer, and an Amazon bestselling author.
You can learn more about Personal Empowerment Life Coach and Executive Coach Smita D Jain’s ‘Empower Yourself’ Coaching Programs by visiting www.lifecoachsmitadjain.com and book a strategy session at https://www.lifecoachsmitadjain.com/booking.
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