Understanding and Avoiding Employee Turnover

Employee turnover.

You may have come across it in your payroll career, or even naturally while you’ve been a member of the U.S. workforce. Some businesses are inundated with turnover, while others are not. Here’s our examination:

What is it: 

Employee turnover is a measurement of how long your employees stay with your company and how often you have to replace them. Having a high rate of it hurts your company’s bottom line. It’s estimated that it takes twice a departing employee’s salary to find and train a replacement.

Where it happens:

Turnover happens within the U.S. working population – in any and all industries. A certain amount is unavoidable due to various reasons, such as: retirement, moving away, going back to school, prolonged illness, or other reasons that result in a person leaving the workforce.

How to spot turnover:

Turnover can happen out of the blue, or there can be a good deal of foreshadowing. Some indicators of it include: 

• Employees providing less constructive contributions during meetings.
• Employees hesitating to commit to long-term projects.
• Employees losing interest in moving up within the organization.
• Employees becoming less social at work.
• Employees showing less concern about pleasing their supervisors.
• Employees failing to suggest innovative ideas.
• Employees doing the bare minimum with decreased productivity.
• Employees losing interest in training programs and opportunities.
• Employees undergoing major life events.
• Employees increasing activity on LinkedIn.

How to prevent employee turnover:

Losing employees to certain factors is 100% avoidable. Consider these practices when trying to thwart turnover:

• Hiring the right people from the start – single best way to reduce turnover.
• Interviewing candidates thoroughly and carefully to ensure they have the necessary skills and match the company culture.
• Setting the right compensation and benefits.
• Paying attention to trends in the marketplace and review compensation and benefits packages annually.
• Creating a rewarding work environment that engages employees – positive work environments with peer recognition garner motivation and success.
• Outlining clear career paths so employees can see where they are headed and how they can get there. 
• Performing annual reviews – they open the door for discussion and encourage workers to come to management with career related questions and aspirations.
• Trusting employees – another top way to prevent employee turnover.

How do you handle turnover in your company?