by Rochelle Ceira
Employee turnover is a serious cost most companies are usually worried about. The reason why this is so is simple: there are significant costs to replacing employee. The amount of time, effort, and money spent on recruiting, selecting, and training an employee and repeating the whole process again for a new one is dreadfully cumbersome.
A considerate employer won’t have to worry too much about employee retention due to his own faults. The problem is — many employers fail to understand where they are “at fault” when it comes to employee retention. For this reason, they end up making costly mistakes that lead to high turnovers and an unwanted, inconvenient process.
So, let’s have a look at some of those critical employee retention mistakes that an employer must avoid!
Recruiting the Wrong People: Very often, the cause of the end problem lies at the start. So, if you are to warn and dismiss a lot of employees, chances are that you aren’t doing a good job at recruiting the right people. Again, this is a very costly mistake that will leave you with a puddle of regrets because you wasted your time and efforts on the wrong players. The hiring manager needs to be able to know how to attract and retain top talent by being trained in a recruiting process.
Not letting go of bad ones: We know that this topic is about employee retention and how costly it is to recruit another one. However, sometimes letting go of a few “bad” employees to hire new ones is crucial to business success. It may be that you want to forgo the whole recruitment process because of all the above reasons. However, if an employee or two is failing at providing adequate work, then there may be an even bigger cost in keeping them that you are choosing to avoid.
Mistaking “0” complaints for “100%” Satisfaction: Just because your employees are saying a word about what is disappointing them doesn’t mean that nothing is. In fact, most top-performing employees choose to remain quite about whatever bothers them because they think of it as a challenge. It won’t be until they have completely given up that they will choose to resign.
It is best to frequently ask them how they feel about their work and if there are any prevailing issues in their current work or environment. This will give them an open opportunity to think and speak up about any overlooked issues. Even if they are not facing any problems, they will certainly appreciate the open communication and considerate efforts.
Not Speaking to their Supervisors: Bosses or supervisors could also directly impact an employee productivity and turnover. Hr managers should find out how a certain supervisor chooses to motivate his/her subordinates. How is their relationship with the subordinates? Watch out for conversations that reveal their attitude with each other. Fear-based motivation techniques are most likely to cause high employee turnover.
Providing incentives for retention is a good way to ensure that supervisors try their best at retaining their employees. This could also be reflected in their performance reviews.
Not meeting their needs: You might know exactly what’s wrong with the organization and which employee needs aren’t being met (workload, lack of growth, pay increases). But, you still choose to ignore the issues and leave them to solve on their own when the “times are better”. The employees certainly won’t wait for that, they’ll just jump into the next best opportunity they find. Reacting to problems too slowly is another reason for low retention. Small problems turn into large ones if they are not attended to in a timely manner.
Not using Employee Referrals: Asking your own employees about their own trusted network of potentials is number 1 hiring strategy that greatly reduces costs. This doesn’t mean you give them the job solely based on their relationship with an employee. Merit should also play its parts in determining which employee to choose.
A quality control manager at a UK dissertation consultancy, Rochelle Ceira loves to explore the vast field of Human Resources. She’s intensely passionate about researching on the current HR trends, strategies and systems to find new and tactical ways for HR professionals around the globe.
