For most businesses, changes in employees are a normal part of life. Whether people are moving away, altering their career path, starting a family, or simply moving onto something new, these changes aren’t necessarily a bad thing.
Often, they can become positive. You have the opportunity to hire someone who brings fresh ideas into the workplace, or to replace an unhappy employee with someone who is more positive and productive.
But if you’re losing employees left, right and centre you might have cause for concern. High staff turnover is expensive and can affect productivity, staff morale and ultimately your business growth.
So what can you do to slow your staff turnover and ensure that you’re retaining your most valuable employees? Here are 5 reasons why employees commonly leave their jobs, and what you can do to ensure your employees aren’t jumping ship.
Workload
People want to enjoy their job and as an employer, you should feel the same. But when your employees start to feel like their workloads are too large, or that they haven’t got enough hours in the day to complete set tasks, they might begin looking for an alternative position.
In order to ensure that your employees are happy to walk through the door each morning, and leave each evening feeling positive, consider how you’re helping them manage their workload.
Ensuring difficult tasks are distributed fairly, and that adequate time is allotted for tasks to be completed can help keep your employees stress levels low. Equally, ensure that your employees are communicating with you and the rest of your team when the workload becomes too much. By making them feel supported, you’re more likely to secure their loyalty and retain their services.
Salary
The potential for a salary increase will naturally tempt your employees to go elsewhere. The obvious answer would be to match any new offers which are made in order to persuade your staff to stay with you. However, this isn’t always a viable option.
Smaller but more regular pay rises or bonuses are a fantastic way of showing employees that you value their work and recognise the effort they have been putting in. Equally, offering them non-monetary benefits such as flexible working or additional opportunities for development demonstrates to your employees that your business values them.
Progression
77% of employees feel they’re ‘on their own’ when it comes to developing their careers. A lack of career growth and opportunities for progression is demotivating and disheartening for employees and could cause them to leave.
Ensuring you have training and development programmes in place which encourage employee progression is vital. By showing your staff that you’re determined to help them make progress, not only are you more likely to hold onto them, but their motivation and productivity is likely to increase.
Visit the Park City website for all of our upcoming training days. Our training is designed to improve skills and confidence across a vital number of areas. Training covers everything from leadership and development, to HR and Health and Safety.
Company Culture
Sometimes employees can naturally be the wrong cultural fit for a business. In these instances, it’s probably for the best that both you and your employee part ways amicably.
But if your company culture is the problem- and you’re losing multitudes of staff on a regular basis, you might want to invest in ways to improve your culture in order to retain your employees.
If you’re unsure about how your employees feel about company culture, anonymous surveys are a good way to gain insight. Using your employees opinions to make positive changes improves company culture and demonstrates that you value what your team has to say.
Equally, our downloadable Company Culture checklist can help you develop a positive company culture. Use it regularly to ensure that all of your daily actions are geared towards creating a positive working environment.
Feeling Underappreciated
Don’t underestimate the power of saying thank you. No one likes to feel underappreciated and a lack of recognition for the hard work your employees are putting in might mean that they’re spending their lunch break job hunting.
Having a feedback loop which regularly acknowledges your employees hard work creates a positive working environment and helps encourage your employees to continue working hard.
If you’re worried about your employees, or scared that your staff turnover rate is too high, we can help. Contact Park City to discuss training to help staff manage their workloads, how to improve your performance management systems and develop a more positive company culture. Our blog is full of advice on how to improve company culture, develop your staff surveying skills and improve employee mental health.
