Reasons why employees leave which you CAN do something about

It always causes temporary problems within a business when a good employee decides to leave, as it can take time and money to find an equivalent replacement.

If you want to improve employee retention and reduce staff turnover, the first step is to deepen understanding of why people leave your organisation. Very often, there are issues behind an unwanted resignation that could (and should) be resolved.

Consider the following facts:

• 80% of employees leave due to bad hiring decisions
• Companies that support flexible hours and have a long-term remote working policy in place have a 25% lower employee turnover rate
• Management transparency generates 30% better retention rates
• 46% of HR managers believe that employee burnout is the reason for half the company’s workforce turnover per year
• Lack of career advancement opportunities is the most cited reason why employees say they are quitting

So, what can you do?

There are common problems that occur in many companies which HR can look out for including issues with candidate fit, career development, company culture and management behaviour. Innovative HR strategies can make a world of difference to your employee attrition rates.

You are probably already monitoring the reasons why individuals are leaving through exit interviews and this information will be held on file. Take some time to look back over the data and see if you can identify any recurring issues or trends. If any resolvable problems are causing staff to leave, you will hopefully be able to find examples that you can use to support any subsequent action required – the senior leadership team will need evidence, especially if your strategy needs investment. This is where HR data analytics are worth their weight in gold.

 

1. Refresh recruitment processes

Start at the beginning and look at how you recruit. When the norm is for half of employees to leave in the first two years, it really pays to spend time upfront getting the right match between candidate and job role. A big part of this is ensuring job descriptions are up-to-date and genuinely reflect what will be expected once they are in post. It’s understandable when managers are busy and understaffed to pull out the last job description and re-use it – but if this isn’t an accurate representation of what’s needed today, the new starter will quickly find that their expectations are not being met.

 

2. Examine company culture

Good employee retention is not just about salary and benefits - and this is a key area that the leadership team in particular needs to understand. Talented and reliable employees will leave businesses if:

• The workload is consistently unmanageable
• When the culture is overly competitive or adversarial
• If they don’t feel part of a team or appreciated, or
• If they don’t feel the business is offering the right support, tools or coaching to enable them to do their job.

In fact, there is an infinite number of reasons why the culture of a business takes over the dynamic of the workplace and harms the employee experience. Sometimes it simply needs a cool and clear look at the reality of what your company is like to work for to really notice if there is a problem.

 

3. Invest in talent development

The best employees quite rightly will want to press forward along their career path, learning new skills and embracing new challenges and opportunities along the way. Just how robust is your talent development programme? How is potential being assessed and are you confident you are identifying all of your talent or only a sub-set that are easy to spot? The best future leaders are not always today’s high profile, highly visible star performers, so you will need to ensure that quieter less obvious talent is still picked and nurtured before they begin to look elsewhere.

 

4. Scrutinise management style

Sometimes retention problems can occur within a specific team or department which can be traced back to a particular manager or leader. This is a difficult problem to resolve sensitively – but it does need to be addressed. Training can be a solution, as can a supportive mentoring relationship as long as the match is right. Consider encouraging management transparency and open communication with staff too, as this is proven to be received positively.

 

5. Readdress work-life balance

Everyone understands that when the business is going through a particularly busy period, it’s sometimes necessary to work harder or for longer hours. But pushing everyone to deliver 110% all the time – not least in the current climate - is certain to end in disaster. Offering flexible working opportunities not only helps to promote healthier working patterns but it also means happier and more productive employees who are more likely to stay for the long haul. This is even more important in a time of increased homeworking, to ensure presenteeism doesn’t become the norm.

From collating data and identifying trends to pulling together management reports on staff turnover – HR software can automate a multitude of processes to help you build a robust employee retention strategy that aligns perfectly with your business and the challenges it is facing. 

If you’d like to speak to someone to discuss your specific needs and how our software might be able to help then book a demo today and one of our friendly team will be in touch.