Managing Staff Turnover
“Clients do not come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients.”
Sir Richard Branson
According to leading human resource consultancy firm Harrisons, depending on the size of your business, the total costs of replacing an employee varies from 30-150% of their salary. This cost includes replacement costs, re-training costs and potential brand damage costs from disgruntled employees. After all, a happy workplace speaks volumes to your customers.
As one of the biggest investments your company will make, it makes sense to care for and work on strategies to retain staff in your business.
Here are five of the best tips for your business to ensure a positive workplace culture!
- Hire right in the first place
It seems obvious but ensuring you have the best fit in the first place will make a huge difference to longevity in your work place. At interview, use behavioural interview techniques and before hiring you can utilise workplace personality tests (eg Cognisess). You can also invite a member of the team they will be working alongside to be a part of the interview process as they are likely to know even more about a correct fit for the team.
Introduce them to the rest of the staff and show them around your business. Show them where they will be mainly working so they can picture their future work space. Hopefully, if they don’t like what they see, they will remove themselves from selection.
Try not to rush your hire either. Many mistake hires are due to ‘needing someone now’ but in the long run this can just cost your business further.
- Offer competitive compensation and benefits
If you are not offering competitive wages, your hires are likely to move across to someone who is. And it doesn’t have to be just based on wages. Extras like free gym membership, a day off on their birthday or a parking space can be the difference it takes.
Research your competitors and what they are offering staff. After all, your staff are your business and you want the best!
- Give praise in public and criticise in private
When you see a staff member do something extraordinary, praise them immediately and in public. If you see someone doing something wrong, quietly correct them and if possible, in private.
As a manager, trust and respect from your employees is crucial and your mantra should always be ‘praise in public and criticise in private’. Praising in public shows your staff you notice when they are doing well. Criticising in private shows your staff you respect them enough not to humiliate them in front of their co-workers or other staff.
- Show the career path
Especially for your younger staff, they are likely to look elsewhere when they feel there is no possibility of advancement to their career. Showing them a clear pathway possibility will not only inspire them to learn, develop and contribute more to your business, it will show that there are opportunities for growth and promotion.
This doesn’t mean every staff member will one day advance to CEO. Giving a bit more responsibility, offering an accredited qualification in their field or showing an opportunity to work towards a possible advancement (within or outside your organisation) can be enough to provide that ‘self-actualisation’ step.
- Offer flexibility
Where possible, offering flexibility is a way of allowing staff a life ‘outside of work’. Flexibility can include work from home days, flexible hours (eg within school hours or starting later/earlier and finishing later/earlier) or other options like reduced leave for extra pay or extra leave for less pay.
Not everyone’s lives fit into the traditional hours and with families to look after and traffic congestion during peak hours, this reduces further stress to your employees.
Of course you can’t make everyone stay in your company and turnover is inevitable due to a variety of changing life circumstances.
If you have staff that you believe may benefit from an accredited qualification through an apprenticeship or traineeship, as well as mentoring support to ensure their success, the team at BUSY At Work can help. Call 13 28 79 or email busy@busyatwork.com.au for further information.
