Rethink Retention: Solutions to Employee High Turnover

Every company's goal is to recruit and retain top talent in their industry to ensure that they have a successful and productive team. Retention is of particular concern for HR teams, as recent years have seen a job market that favors employees and job seekers, which can lead to high turnover as employees seek more favorable opportunities.

To stem the loss of employees and attract job seekers, it is then crucial that organizations understand what leads to retention and recruitment issues so that they can make appropriate changes. While high employee turnover is expected, excessively high turnover is a multifaceted issue that can significantly impact a company's culture, productivity, and bottom line. 

To help you address high turnover rates at your company, we aim to delve into six common why employees leave their jobs.

By understanding the root causes of high employee turnover- from inadequate compensation to limited career progression- we can come up with effective employee retention strategies .

Together, we can explore these factors, unpack their implications, and provide practical solutions to mitigate their impact. After all, understanding why employees leave is the first step to ensuring they stay.  

6 Causes of High Employee Turnover

Turnover is normal at any business, and an employee may choose to leave your company for any number of reasons. However, high turnover rates can have a significant impact on your business, and it can indicate poor company policies and practices. Knowing the causes of high turnover can then help you make changes to help prevent talent loss. Some of the most common reasons businesses struggle with employee retention:

Overwork

Burnout and mental fatigue are among the most common reasons employees choose to find another job. When an employee is required or feels obligated to work long hours, they may feel overworked and stretched too thin.

Not only can this greatly reduce job satisfaction, but it can actually reduce performance by causing emotional and physical exhaustion. Thusly, a simple way to reduce burnout and high turnover rates is to ensure that your employees are able to maintain a healthy work/life balance.

While occasional overtime may be necessary in order to meet tight deadlines, your employees should not be forced to work long hours on a regular basis. You should also set realistic goals and time expectations for projects in order to ensure that your team can reasonably meet deadlines without feeling overworked. 

Poor Management

Another common reason employees leave is due to poor or ineffective management. Bad managers can create a toxic work environment and an overall poor employee experience by taking credit for others' ideas, playing favorites, micromanaging, and by giving conflicting instructions. Poor management can lead to high turnover, and it can even affect the overall health and productivity of your organization.

While weeding out toxic managers can be essential in creating a positive work environment, reducing high turnover also hinges on giving management the tools that they need to be effective leaders.

Good managers need to be able to foster team spirit, and they need to know how to encourage and nurture staff, and advocate for their needs, so that they feel supported and are able to reach their full potential.

A great way to ensure your management is effective is to hold extra trainings. Make sure that they are well-informed on their exact responsibilities and have the tools to create a healthy, productive work environment for their employees.    

Lack of Recognition

Employees may also leave if they feel unappreciated or as if their work constantly goes unrecognized. Not only can not receiving recognition for their hard work make employees feel unappreciated, but it can actually make it hard for them to determine what good performance looks like.

This can lead to low productivity, low work quality, and low achievement rates. While feedback doesn't always have to come in the form of praise, ensuring employees are recognized for their hard work and know when they've done a good job can motivate them to be more productive.

In fact, a Gallup survey shows employees who were given positive feedback were four times as likely to be engaged in their work, and only 3.6% were actively looking for new jobs.

When team members are recognized by leaders for a job well done or for hitting a professional milestone, they are more likely to experience job satisfaction, improving retention rates.  

Lack of Growth Opportunities

Employees will also leave an organization if they do not see a future for themselves there, often due to a lack of growth and development opportunities at the company. If an employee feels stuck professionally, either because they have nothing else to learn in their role and/or they have advanced as far as they can, they are likely to move elsewhere.

Employees want to be recognized for their hard work and achievements through promotions and increased compensation. Alternatively, some employees may be satisfied in their current position but want to have the opportunity to attend conferences and trainings, earn professional certificates, or participate in other programs to help them to grow professionally.

Providing employees with growth and development opportunities can be essential in increasing job satisfaction and reducing instances of high employee turnover.     

Insufficient Compensation

One of the biggest reasons employees cite for leaving a job is insufficient compensation and employee benefits. While employees have always wanted to feel appreciated and may look elsewhere if they believe their compensation is not representative of their contribution to the company, today's workers are more concerned about compensation than ever due to record inflation.

If an employee isn't making as much as they think they should, they may apply to one of your competitors. Unfortunately, employers often lack motivation to provide competitive compensation and benefits, and they may not even realize that their staff feels underpaid until they encounter issues with recruitment and retention.

It is then essential that you take proactive steps to ensure your compensation is competitive in order to retain employees.  

Poor Recruitment Process

When employee turnover is high, you may want to look into problems in your hiring and onboarding processes. The fact is that making sure that you choose new employees who will be a good fit for your company is just as important as creating a positive company work culture.

Choosing the right candidate for the job is more than picking the right CV, it is making sure that the candidate has the skills and abilities needed for the job and is compatible with your company's culture.

Choosing candidates from the start who will be a good fit for your company will significantly reduce turnover rates. 

How to Prevent High Employee Turnover

Knowing why employees are likely to leave can help you to take proactive steps to reduce turnover at your company. Once you identify the likely causes for your high turnover rates, you can then take measures to improve employee retention. Here is a look at just a few steps that you can take to prevent high turnover at your company. 

Research Compensation in Your Industry

One of the biggest things that you can do to reduce turnover rates at your company is to make sure that you are offering competitive salaries. When possible, try to provide annual base pay increases based on inflation, as this can help ensure your staff is satisfied.

You should also regularly monitor what other companies in your industry are paying in order to ensure that your compensation remains competitive. It is also important that you do not overlook the importance of offering comprehensive benefits, as employees may go elsewhere if your benefits package does not meet their needs. 

Invest in Professional Development Programs

If your organization has the funds, consider investing in training and career development courses. This would allow your staff to learn new skills that could help them move up in their careers.

Providing your team with access to courses, assessments, ongoing training, and even certification programs can show them that you are invested in their professional development, and ensures that they have opportunities to grow.

This can go a long way in improving employee satisfaction and loyalty, as your staff will feel taken care of, which can help reduce turnover rates. 

Send Out Team Member Feedback Surveys

Anonymous surveys can be a great way to get insight into how your employees feel about your company and where they see room for improvement. Use these surveys to ask them to rate your organization on different categories like company culture, communication, management, and workload.

Making these surveys anonymous increases the likelihood that your staff will give honest feedback, which can give you a good idea of where you can make adjustments to ensure your team is happy and productive. 

Complete Stay Interviews With Your Team Members

Stay interviews involve talking to your current employees one-on-one to learn about their experience with the company culture, management, their teammates, and their overall job satisfaction.

These meetings promote direct communication between leadership and employees, which can give you valuable insight into why your team members leave, and where your company could improve, through constructive feedback provided by your staff.

These meetings also show your staff that you are concerned about their satisfaction and well-being, which can improve retention rates.

Reassess Your Hiring Process

As we previously mentioned, choosing the right candidates is essential in reducing turnover rates. It is then important that employers assess their hiring process in order to ensure that they are recruiting candidates who will be a good fit.

One of the most important things that you can do to make sure that your recruiting efforts are effective is to ensure that your job postings are in alignment with the actual duties and responsibilities required by the position.

When performing interviews, you should also be honest about the company's culture and the expectations that would be required of candidates, as new employees are likely to leave quickly if the position and company are not what they expected.

You should also ask targeting questions during the interview to determine whether the candidate has the proper experience for the position and will be aligned with the company's mission and goals.   

Taking proactive steps to reduce employee turnover is critical in order to cut costs and increase productivity. Fortunately, even in a market where turnover is high, improving retention rates at your company is not an insurmountable task.

Small changes can make a big difference in creating an environment at your organization that keeps top talent from leaving, reducing high turnover.