Employees will come and go. When you’re a manager, it is up to you to determine what you can do to keep your employees with you so that you don’t experience high turnover. In order to keep your employees, you need to look at the reasons as to why they would leave in the first place. Often, there is something that you can do to ensure that employees’ needs are being met.
Not Enough Opportunities
Some people don’t feel as though there is an opportunity for them to be promoted. It’s important to understand the negative effects of a high turnover. It’s costly and it affects productivity. If you’re not currently training your employees to scale the corporate ladder, you’re doing your employees and your company a huge injustice. Employees want to know that there is an opportunity to be promoted. Focus on hiring from within as opposed to always hiring from the outside for the higher positions.
Poor Management
There is the saying that people don’t quit their jobs, they quit a manager. One of the top reasons why people will begin looking for another job is because they find their manager to be intolerable. Bad manager behavior is common. Whether it’s as a result of poor training, too much stress or another reason, the behavior of a manager is enough to cause a lot of people to leave the workplace.
Poor Benefits
Many employees take a position until something better comes along. They leave a company because of the poor benefits. This may be in the form of their salary, their health care options, or even their paid leave time. There are a number of businesses focusing on providing better benefits as a way of luring the best employees to them. If you’re fearful of employees leaving, take a good look at the benefits package that you’re offering.
Lack of Flexibility
Everyone wants a healthy work/life balance. If people feel as though they are always working, they will leave because they want to have a life outside of work. When an employer doesn’t offer any kind of flexibility, a person becomes stifled.
Many businesses have offered flexibility by allowing people to work from home or a coffee shop. Others are able to come in late or leave early if there is a family emergency without feeling as though they are going to get reprimanded from their manager.
They’re Not Fulfilled
One of the reasons why people quit is because they are being underutilized. Everyone is passionate about something. It’s important for a manager to bring out the underutilized strengths of a person so that they feel more fulfilled. Employees want to feel as though their job has a purpose and that they are contributing positively towards the greater good.
There are Better Opportunities
In some instances, employees leave because there are better opportunities at another company, in another city, or even in another career field. There may not be anything that you can do when an employee feels as though it’s time for them to move on. However, you can at least be aware that they are interested in something bigger/better/different so that when they announce that they’re leaving, you’re not completely shocked.
They’re Underappreciated
The concept of employee recognition has and always will matter. Employees want to feel appreciated when they do a job well. Often, managers simply expect employees to do their job and don’t stop to say “thank you” in any way. Rolling out some kind of formal employee recognition program may be what will keep employees where they are instead of wandering over to the competition.
Conclusion
The reality is that all employees will think about leaving at some point or another. Some will leave because of better opportunities while others will leave because of an overbearing boss. By identifying problems within your organization, you may be able to improve employee turnover dramatically.
