Business growth and high staff turnover: what to do about it

Losing trusted personnel is always a concern, especially when you’re trying to grow your business.

A high staff turnover rate can disrupt processes, affect staff morale, and drain time, money and resources away from a company’s overarching goals.

Here, we’ll take a look at why you should care about resignations, the reasons they happen, and what you can do to prevent them, keeping in mind at all times the objective of business growth.

High staff turnover can seriously limit business growth.

How does staff turnover affect business growth?

If you type “How do I grow my business” into Google, you’ll likely return a lot of results about what makes a ‘foolproof’ strategy, how to identify new opportunities, and different ways to get your brand out there. While there’s no doubt that all of these things, and more, are important ingredients for business growth, one subject area that’s conspicuous by its absence is looking after your staff.

The impacts of staff leaving your company are often felt much more widely than you may first think. When it comes to hindering business growth frequent departures can affect the following:

• Costs: As anyone with any experience of hiring and training a new employee will know, it doesn’t come cheaply. One 2017 study found that on average, the costs to replace an employee are 20% of that position’s salary.  In an organization with a high turnover, these costs can quickly start to add up and affect growth.
• Productivity: With a depleted team, you can’t expect to get the same amount of work done. This will, with time, start to seriously impact the productivity of your business, which will, in turn, be detrimental to your ability to grow.
• Staff morale: The byproducts of this increased workload for those left behind can include higher levels of stress, and an overall drop in morale. This could create a vicious cycle of resignations if these new stresses become too great.
• Leadership prioritizing: Instead of focusing on growth strategies, lengthy recruitment and hiring cycles will serve as unnecessary distractions for you and the rest of the leadership team.

Leaders need to recognize the importance of staff retention if their company is to grow successfully.

What are the causes of high staff turnover?

A 2017 report from the Institute of Managers and Leaders showed that 10 percent of employees leave their positions voluntarily because they aren’t offered sufficient opportunities to develop themselves professionally.

The top three reasons for resigning in this survey were as follows:

• Seeking new challenges – 79 percent.
• Limited career advancement/progression – 58 percent.
• Insufficient remuneration – 45 percent.

What you can do to prevent high staff turnover?

What should strike you first as you digest this information is that all of the above are largely within your control. In this section, we’ll discuss some of the specific steps you can take to reduce the rates of attrition in your business.

1. Regularly engage with your staff:

As a people manager you’re setting yourself up for failure if you don’t frequently take the time to talk to your staff. This is especially true in growing businesses where changes in strategy or increasing demands mean that personnel are consistently having to adapt to new ways of working. Having your finger on the pulse of your employees gives you a better chance of catching problems when they’re in their infancy, rather than letting them develop.

2. Conduct exit interviews:

Whether it’s the latest in a spate of resignations, or the first departure in a while, it’s vital to engage the outgoing staff member in an exit interview. These forums offer the perfect opportunity to discover exactly why this person no longer wants to work in your organisation. Free from the pressure of talking to a professional superior, you’ll likely find former employees are a lot more honest in this setting, providing you with valuable insights as to how you can improve staff experience for those who remain, therefore reducing future turnover.

3.  Provide professional upskilling programmes

The millennial workforce is only going to grow in the coming years, so knowing how to appeal to this group is particularly important for managers who want to hold onto their staff. A staggering 87 percent of millennials rank professional or career growth and development opportunities as important to them in a role, according to a Gallup report – so establishing training programs should be high on your list of priorities.

The other benefit of this solution is that better-trained staff have more to offer your business. A great place to learn how to instigate such initiatives is with Call Design’s Managers Essentials Course. Designed for team leaders and managers, this program will tell you how to set measurable goals with your employees, identify roadblocks that could prevent them achieving their objectives, and provide actionable feedback.

The existence of these initiatives not only makes your company a more attractive place to work, but also lays the foundations for a more productive and engaged workforce.

Training programs are a great way of engaging staff with your business, and improving productivity.

4. Implement incentive programs

Another crucial way of increasing loyalty is to recognise and reward strong performances.

As we saw above, 45 percent of voluntary resignations come as a result of insufficient remuneration. While simply upping the salaries of all staff is financially unviable in the majority of businesses, an important step is to provide employees with a progression roadmap. By showing workers what they need to do in order to be considered for promotion you make it clear that increased wages are a tangible reality.

However, there are plenty of incentives you can offer instead of/alongside augmented earnings:

• Flexible work arrangements: Millennial employees are more likely to be loyal to companies that offer flexible work arrangements, according to the 2018 Deloitte Millennial Survey. Software such as Call Design’s workforce management solution ME offers staff the opportunity to take ownership of their personal schedules on-the-go.
• Gift cards: Gift cards are a great incentive as you can personalize them to show an awareness of an employee’s interests or hobbies.
• Events: Company funded events or excursions are perfect for showing staff that their efforts are appreciated, and to bring the team closer together.

These are just a few ideas on how you can help to prevent staff from leaving your business. For more solutions, and information on our training courses, get in touch with Call Design today.