How to Reduce Employee Turnover

As a company or business, sometimes it’s easy to stand back and look at the bigger picture. Sometimes however, as business owners we tend to forget the very basic details that go into making our companies thrive. No successful business person will argue that their employees aren’t an integral part of their foundation. Taking care of your employees should come first, they’re usually the face of your product or service, and they’re the ones really greasing the wheels and bringing your product to the consumers. It’s no wonder that employee retention should be a focus for you and your leadership team – after all, the costs of employee turnover is compounding. 

Preventing employee turnover will save you in a variety of areas – maintaining loyalty with familiar faces, retaining institutional knowledge, and of course, saving on the hours you’ve spent training and teaching those employees as they come through your doors. We’ve got some tips to help you reduce employee turnover here below.

Reduce Employee Turnover – Tips for Employee Retention

To reduce employee turnover, you don’t have to take extreme measures to fix the issue. In fact, if your company focuses on some proactive measures you may be able to prevent a higher rate of employee turnover to begin with. Below are some tips to help with employee retention to help your company grow successfully with your people.

• Up your interview game – Sometimes the best way to keep turnover down is by ensuring you’re hiring the very best fit for your business. Don’t be afraid to get interactive in interviews, and ask the questions that are imperative to your operation. Ask them questions like “What do you think you’ll bring to this position that no one else can offer?” or “What are some strengths and weaknesses?”.
• Offer wages and benefits that people want to come for – A great way to widen your applicant pool and give yourself more options from your interviewing process is by offering competitive wages with quality benefits. 
• Praise your people, and often – We’re not saying that meaningless accolades should flow unnecessarily, but empowering your people will go a really, really long way. Let them know they’re appreciated, remind them why you value them and don’t let important accomplishments or things they’re proud of go unnoticed. Being seen is important to feeling valued, and in the workplace this is easy to forget.
• Provide immediate structure and clear expectations – When you’re onboarding your new employees, ensure expectations are clear immediately. Give them proper training up front, and make sure you explain the “why”. Your employees will go forth with confidence if they know why they’re doing something a specific way, and if the foundation is there, knowing how to do it the right way can only lead to solid development. 
• Develop your team – By offering frequent evaluations, teaching opportunities, or even by allowing them to learn new tasks and take on different responsibilities you’re further empowering your team to want to do more. Imagine being bored at work with little to no chance at learning a new skill. It can mean burnout, and potentially those individuals may even become toxic to your healthy work environment. 
• Put your stars where they shine – Be willing to recognise that someone’s skill set could be better utilised in a different position. By acknowledging that someone may be stuck in a rut doing something they’re efficient at, and finding the task they’re proficient at can mean a boost in productivity and a feeling of worth at what they’re doing. 
• Deal with toxic employees swiftly – If someone comes to work with a bad attitude, it can rub off on the rest of your team in a hurry. It can make your other staff members less productive and can even inspire them to find a different place of employment without the hassle of a negative individual. 
• Be kind, be flexible – Telecommuting is becoming more and more popular with today’s workforce. Part of this is due to a multitude of reasons but one thing is clear. Allowing for flexibility on things like working from home, or allowing a shift in schedules to take care of things like sick kids or dentists appointments can go a long way. 

To reduce employee turnover it’s important to remember your employees aren’t just machines – they’re people and they’re people who have daily lives just like yours. By taking good care of them you’re ensuring they’ll take good care of you. At the end of the day, when they’re taken care of and given development opportunities, they want to stick around. After all, by bringing your folks up with you, they’ll help your company advance by advancing themselves.

At hug, we’ve developed a platform that helps you support your team. It offers holistic real time analysis of your employee wellbeing and smart matches products, services and benefits to employee needs. We want you to gain critical insights on your workforce and use hug data to measure the impact of products and services you offer employees. Book a demo by clicking here today.