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High employee turnover undoubtedly hurts a company’s morale and bottom line. It’s reported that 22% of turnover occurs in the first forty-five days of employment. There are significant costs related to employee turnover—interviewing, selection and new employee on-boarding processes—all which require a large investment of resources. Aside from these costs, productivity will suffer and continue to suffer until employment gaps are filled and new employees are performing at the required rate of production.
Here's something that may interest you: How To Eliminate Contingent Worker Turnover
While turnover can be broken down into two groups, involuntary and voluntary, businesses have no control of involuntary turnover like retirements, firings and unforeseen events. However, there are several things that can be done to reduce the rate of voluntary turnover that will keep keep production levels up and eliminate the need of additional resource investment.
The Dont's For Reducing Turnover, Increasing Morale & Productivity
Do not focus solely on incentives
Incentives must be in tandem with other performance practices at your facility. Simply rewarding the meet/exceeding of production levels isn’t sustainable and will send the wrong message to your workforce. Ensure you have a well rounded strategy to recognizing and rewarding quality work that doesn’t just include tangible or intangible incentives.
Want to know more about incentive programs? Read this: Can Incentive Recruiting Programs Bring High Quality Contingent Workers?
Do not hire out of desperation
Knee jerk reactions when hiring often lead to job skill mismatches or relatively quick turnover due to rushing or expediting the hiring process. Your hiring and onboarding process is put in place so you can find the right person for the job who will has the skill to operate at peak efficiency and will fit in well at your business. It is understandable to want to find someone quick when your production levels are low, however this action will end up costing you more in the long run.
Do not improperly place workers
When production or your business is suffering, overtime opportunities often present themselves. However, when workers who are unqualified or have little knowledge about the job, it will cause not just an issue for your business but possibly with the worker who is filling the position. If their performance isn’t optimal, frustration from managerial feedback can discourage the employee and make them feel disconnected with their job. In addition, other workers can recognize instability in the workforce and seek employment elsewhere. Make sure that when you place workers in sinkholes that need to be filled, they can handle the job both emotionally and skillfully.
Do not exhaust workers
While production levels need to remain high, exceeding the limit of what employees are expected to maintain long term is not recommended. The short term results might yield a boost in production, but the long term effects can be potential health problems, mental instability, disruptions in personal relationships and ultimately an increase in turnover. Be sure to properly vet candidates during the recruiting phase—which helps gain an understanding of their skill level—and stick with your initial findings when creating their workload schedule. Remember, increasing production levels might be needed from time to time, but exhausting your workers will lead to far greater issues than low production numbers.
Stay tuned for part two of our series that will cover what you should do to successfuly reduce turnover, increase the morale and surpercharge the productivity at your facility.
