4 Ways to Fix Employee Retention Problems

4 Ways to Fix Employee Retention Problems

Employee retention is a vital aspect of any company’s success. While all companies have some degree of employee loss, the need to continually fill the same job slots can be a financial catastrophe. According to a 2012 study by the Center for American Progress, the cost of replacing employees is around 16% of their annual salary.

Take stock. Do more than 50% of your workforce fail to make it to the 6-month mark? If so, you might want to make some changes. Here are a few methods to fix a pesky employee retention problem.

Losing Employees? 4 Ways to Fix Employee Retention Problems

1. Start Exit Interviews

Exit interviews are conducted by someone within the organization (typically an individual in HR or management) before an employee leaves the company. The interview can be used to determine what aspects of the company is inefficient or just not working.

From an employee retention standpoint, exit interviews can help the company pinpoint why they are unable to retain employees and how they might increase employee retention.

Here are a few questions to ask during exit interviews:

• Why are you leaving?

• What did the new company offer?

• Did the job meet your expectations?

• Did the job align with goals and interests?

• Did you have the tools and knowledge to do the job effectively?

• What could we have done better?

• Would you recommend our company to friends for employment?

• What was your favorite thing about the job?

• What would you have changed about the job?

2. Monitor Unproductive Employees

Low company expectation for employees can foster a culture of troublesome employees. Troublesome employees lower productivity, raise negative emotions of all employees and indirectly encourage all employees to adopt troublesome work habits.

I can tell you personally how discouraging it can be to work at a company where low productivity had zero consequences. Month after month, I would watch as low achievers did almost no work. What they did with their time, I didn’t always know. They clearly weren’t working.

It was a discouraging environment. I had to work twice as hard to compensate for my dead-end co-workers. They were given the same level of raises as everyone else a lot of the time for essentially being human topiary.

Not surprisingly it was the high achievers that fled in droves. After all, what sane person would quit a job where they were being paid to browse the internet? In the last year, they finally stopped rewarding mediocrity. And I know I feel a lot happier working at the company.

3. Promote From Within

The days when individuals remain at a company out of loyalty are slowly coming to an end. Technology, from the computer to cars, has made it easy for career professionals to locate new jobs, interview for those jobs, and move across the country for new jobs.

Due to the fact it’s easier to locate new jobs, the newer generations aren’t as apt to stay at a job long-term. According to 4 Ways Millennials Are Changing the Workplace, Baby Boomers on average remain at a company 7 years and Generation X remain for around 5 years. “58% of Millennials” on the other hand “expect to leave their jobs in 3 years or less.”

In order to retain employees long-term, it can be important to try to create career tracks within the company. Ideally, your company would have management positions, and other high-level positions, that the company has a history of internally filling. The hope that an individual may earn a management position could help your company keep employees just a little longer.

4. Flexibility in Work

It can be difficult for small businesses to offer competitive perks. There are a few perks that you might be able to offer that don’t require large investments of company funds. Millennials, in particular, prefer alternatives to the traditional 9-5 work week.

If millennials have to choose between a job with higher pay or greater workplace flexibility, 45% of millennials will choose increased flexibility. By just making a few changes to how your company functions, you can potentially increase your ability to keep employees.

Here are a few types of flexible workplaces to consider:

• Four day work week.

• Work where you want within the building.

• Telecommuting (partial or full).

• Telecommuting and choose when you work (partial or full).

• Choose when you work (partial or full).

Continually losing employees can be financially detrimental to your company. It’s imperative that business owners work to increase the tenure of their employees.

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