Not all employee turnover is detrimental. In fact, when an unreliable, high-maintenance, under-performing individual leaves, managers and colleagues alike will often breathe a sigh of relief.
However, when a top performer makes an abrupt departure, it can leave managers and their teams in a difficult situation:
- Direct Costs: When a valuable employee quits, you incur the direct costs of recruiting, onboarding, and training their replacement to get them up to speed.
- Lost Investment: The great employee you worked hard to recruit, onboard, and train takes their talent (and your investment in them) to another employer. When you lose a relatively new employee, the impact of your lost onboarding and training investment is even higher because the sooner they leave, the less time you have to make a return on your investment.
- Disruption to Workflows and Relationships: Any time an employee voluntarily quits, your company experiences a disruption in workflow and work relationships (both internally and externally). The vacuum they create also typically increases the work burden on your remaining employees. When a top performer makes an abrupt departure, it can magnify the disruption and stress on your team.
- Copycat Departures: When good employees leave, it sometimes triggers other unplanned departures. Remaining employees may question their own loyalty to your organization or be directly recruited by the former employee’s new employer.
- Loss of Proven, Reliable Talent: High voluntary turnover among good employees diminishes the strength of your internal talent bench. A “revolving door” makes it nearly impossible to develop home-grown talent for other positions throughout your organization and up the ranks.
However, organizations can take control of unplanned turnover by CHARM-ing their employees?
Most organizations have processes such as ‘Exit Interviews’ in place to try to understand why employees are leaving. But this is only part of the battle; employers must be able to swiftly enact CHARM-ing strategies to attract, retain, and develop their workforce.
- Committing to your vision and ensuring your culture aligns with the company’s values as well as the type of person you seek to employ.
- Helping your leaders navigate the changing scope of work and equipping them with the tools and resources needed to inspire, coach, and develop their teams. Helping your employees manage competing priorities, their growth, and outside factors that can cause stress.
- Attracting the best talent by partnering with your HR teams to maximize results in recruiting. Focus on the type of person you want to employ and what they want in an employer. When you identify those qualities, use them as the foundation for your recruiting strategy.
- Re-recruiting your good people! Retaining key talent needs to be done with the same energy that you invested in recruiting that talent in the first place. Consider implementing a twice-yearly “stay meeting” for employees – think the polar opposite of an “exit interview” i.e.: “what do we need to do to ensure you stay?” Vs “what did we fail to do that made you leave?”.
- Motivating your people by taking the time to know what’s going on in their work and personal lives and offering support. Take care of work-life balance and recognize your people’s achievements. People become most motivated when their leader shows interest in their whole lives and not just work output.
The OrgShakers team has extensive experience in analyzing why employees are leaving, where they are going, and what will attract and retain your ideal employee.
If you would like insight into how Unplanned Turnover is impacting your organization – and guidance in developing your strategy to take control, please get in touch at: hello@orgshakers.com.