How To Reduce Employee Turnover in a Small Business

By polling several hundred HR departments across the country, Smallbizdaily.com discovered that turnover and employee engagement are the top challenges they tackle every year.

Let’s start with some stats. On average, any size company loses anywhere from a quarter to a half of its employee base annually. On the flipside, companies who report high engagement in their workers have 1/3 lower turnover rates.

A little over half of employees are currently searching for alternate job opportunities. And a little under half of small business owners report that losing their employees to another company is a major concern.

Let’s round it out with the ‘why’ of it all. So why is this a problem? If one employee leaves, there’s always at least 20-30 resumes kept in a file somewhere of candidates who would jump at the chance for a job. True. You could replace. There are always job seekers. But that’s putting a rather expensive band-aid on the issue rather than truly healing the sore. So what does high turnover really cost your company?

Monetary

•  Advertising the job vacancy
•  Training/licensing of the new hire
•   Possible moving expenses and background/drug testing

Time

• Recruitment and interviewing for the vacant job
• Overtime for supervisors to do the work until an employee is hired
• Learning curve and training time for new employee

 Dynamic

• Company morale
• Employees learning how each team member contributes and having to change that

 Continuity

• Client relationship-building
• Customer service confusion

Let’s finish with a solution. Create a thorough job description that accurately reflects the company culture and the duties required of the employee, along with the benefits. Create a strong interview process that includes a couple members of the team that have stayed with the company. Keep employees motivated and remind them of their value with employee engagement programs. Show employees what goals they need to accomplish in order to grow in the company. Make employee birthdays, anniversaries and flex time a priority to create a community and prevent burn-out.