Consistently high rates of turnover can cost your company a lot of money and time. The most well-known problem caused by high job turnover rates is that you're always looking to hire and train new employees. However, there are a lot of other issues that are caused by high employee turnover, and these impact your current staff that's been willing to stand by your company.
Let's look at a few of the issues that are caused by high employee turnover and ways you might be able to reduce employee turnover in your operations. The solutions will take time and effort, but what you spend here will generate a significant ROI when you see how much you save on training spend alone.
Other Concerns With High Job Turnover Rates
Cost is easy to identify as a major problem of a high turnover rate, but your existing team faces a lot of other problems that can quickly do harm. Here are some of the biggies:
- Reduced morale: When your team needs to pick up the slack or make up for employees who are no longer there, it increases their stress levels and reduces morale. It's harder for everyone to get their job done. Reduced morale is often tied to increases in theft, poor service and even poor attention and on-the-job injuries.
- Productivity declines: A new workforce always working to learn your processes is less efficient than an established one. The higher your turnover rate, the longer your lag times between reaching peak efficiency levels. If you lose too many senior employees, you may also have lower peaks.
- Client continuity: What happens when your customers are always working with someone new? In many cases, this means the level of service they receive remains low. For some industries, like B2B sales, clients will see turnover as a red flag indicating that your business may not last long.
Employee Turnover Rate Management
Management of employee turnover rates starts in the hiring process. You'll need to work hard to make sure you're hiring a team that has a strong working background, a history of showing up and meets the specific qualifications of your industry.
If you're not checking references for anyone beyond a truly entry-level worker, then you're not doing the basic groundwork that would allow you to see red flags before they cost you money.
You can also solve turnover rates for established employees by monitoring and addressing complaints that lead to employees leaving. These vary by situation, but will often include things like employees not feeling respected or valued, too many requests for extra time such as work on weekends, no clear path for growth, unpleasant working conditions or pay that's not comparable to your competitors.
Every time someone leaves, it costs you money. The best way to defend against this problem is with a good offense that treats employees positively and rewards them for doing a good job.