Is Your Organization Experiencing High Turnover Rates? Perhaps You Are Doing These 4 Things
You have probably heard this figure before, but according to most HR professionals, it costs about $80,000 to recruit, train and acclimate a brand new employee into a professional position. $80,000! In addition, Inc. Magazine recently ran a piece about other factors that affect teamwork.
About two years ago, I was a subcontractor for a small business that had 100% turnover in the six years they were in business. The only constant force in the business was the president and everyone below him was either fired or quit. His longest tenured employee lasted one year! He is still experiencing that level of turnover today…because he really hasn’t looked at why his organization is failing.
The scary part according to Carly Guthrie, a Human Resources Consultant, is that employees will start to look for another job even if they are slightly angry, bored or dissatisfied with their job.
4 Flubs that Lead to High Turnover Rates
Flub #1: You Expect Them to Work All The Time
Are you guilty of this:
- Asking your employees to come in early and stay late?
- Expecting them to work weekends?
- Horning in on their vacation and sick time?
Just because you work all the time, don’t expect your employees and teammates to do the same. Allow them to enjoy their time off and even if you send an email during this time, make it clear you don’t expect a return response until after they get back to the office.
Flub #2: You Make a Counteroffer
If your employee comes to you with a resignation letter, accept it. Don’t counteroffer because the battle to win that employee over is lost. Whatever time they give you (usually two weeks) use as a productive means to garner as much information from them as possible. Wish them well at their new job and let them go.
Flub #3: You Hire the Wrong People
You know your company culture the best. You might want someone who is brilliant, fun and a great team member. But chances are you are not going to have all that in one canidate. ReadyForce, a professional network for college students, suggests you hire the fun and collaborative one and forget brilliance – especially if they are a jerk. In fact, ReadyForce does a lot of team building activities that revolve around fun, in order to help the team come together.
Flub #4: Your Company is All Office, All Virtual or Inconsistent About Your Policies
If your organization requires all employees to come to the office every day, or your employees are all virtual or you allow some employees to work virtually but not others, you are setting yourself up for dissatisfied team members.
According to Guthrie, the best policy is a flexible policy that is fair to all concerned. So, if an employee wants to work virtually for awhile and can show their work is being completed on time, you should let them work from home.
In summary, if you want your employees to gel as a team, you need to:
- Be respectful of their time off and realize they have a life;
- Let people go when they quit, but learn from that experience;
- Take time to hire the right people and;
- Be sensitive to employee’s need to work from home but have measurement tactics in place.
How Fun Team Building Can Help
If your organization is experiencing high turnover rates, give owner Larry Lipman a call at 770.333.3303 to learn more about ways he can help your team build trust, work together and communicate more effectively.