Businesses in any sector, where they find themselves with relatively high turnover rates, can be exposed to wide ranging operational issues such as their ability to cover shifts, loss of productivity, increasing absence rates, inability to meet deadlines, reduced production.
Some sectors are particularly prone to high staff turnover due to the nature of their their workforce planning strategies and the type of employees they attract. Examples of such industries are hospitality, customer service and call centres, sales and retail.
In our current economic climate, where the unemployment rate is around 4%, employee retention becomes even more important. Currently many businesses are not finding the right people for their teams and successful recruitments are taking many months. In these conditions your businesses retention strategy is critical.
Causes of Turnover
There are many causes for high turnover, and in some cases there is little a business can do about it. This for example is the case when a business recruits mainly students looking for part-time employment.
Luckily, in many situations a business does have a reasonable amount of control over their turnover rates, and can aim to minimise the main causes of turnover.
Research has shown that employees who leave businesses mainly do so because of feeling treated unfairly or felt they were given an unreasonable workload, saw a lack of growth opportunities, weren’t feeling recognised or were in disagreement with their line management.
Retention Strategies
Staff retention strategies should be integrated into strategic HR workforce planning and cover all aspects of the employment lifecycle. Proven solutions for the reduction of turnover rates include:
1. Ensuring that each employee is able to work on something that is meaningful to them and provides the opportunity for them to make a difference
2. Ensuring fair, transparent and communicative leadership
3. Providing opportunities for growth
4. Offering appropriate pay and benefit packages when compared to external market rates
5. Better management of workload providing flexibility where possible
by Tani Hansen, HR Advisor
Mobile: 027 701 9592