Staff retention is universally recognised as an essential part of building a successful company. Every time a new staff member has to be found, it can cost the company as much as 20% of that employee’s annual salary in recruitment costs. Also, from the point of view of building on your company’s successes, keeping hold of the skilled employees who drove those successes in the first place is often an essential prerequisite.
The first part of improving staff retention is to determine whether staff are leaving because of a recruitment issue or because of a human resources issue [http://talent.linkedin.com/blog/index.php/2015/08/employee-retention-turnover-hr-recruiting-fault]. This can be determined by looking at the reasons people have chosen to leave your company.
Starting with recruitment, one sign that this is at the root of a high staff turnover is that employees frequently cite the company’s culture as being the reason that they left. This will also usually be associated with a high incidence of employees leaving the company for positions that are of similar status and pay. The other major sign that high staff turnover is caused by problems with recruitment is that you often have to fire employees due to the fact that they lack the skills for the job.
The solutions to these recruitment problems lie in making the culture of the company clear in job adverts and during the interview. A more structured, objective interview process can help to screen candidates who might not have the correct skills for the position.
As well as making the company’s culture clear to candidates for positions, it makes sense to ensure that your culture is one where the people that you want to attract can thrive. For example, younger employees increasingly expect to be able to work in a flexible, agile manner with access to a range of interconnected devices [http://www.hrgrapevine.com/markets/hr/article/2015-08-20-hr-must-create-an-office-staff-want-to-work-in-not-avoid].
A sign that high turnover is caused by HR issues is that employees will be leaving in order to progress their careers. This results in your company losing the skills of an employee that you have spent time and money training. Another sign is that particular demographic groups are leaving your company. For example, young parents or people who want to study at college or university. These issues can often be resolved by looking again at your company’s maternity and paternity arrangements. Similarly, opportunities to go part-time in order to accommodate education could help you to retain key skills.
When it comes to career progression, the single most important thing is employee engagement. Managers should talk to employees about where they want to see their career go http://playbook.amanet.org/improve-performance-management-processes/?pcode=XCRP&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=playbook-article. In this way you can ensure that your employees are challenged and are able to constantly develop their skills. This should help with performance management as well as ensuring that they stay for longer at your company.