4 Reasons You’re at Fault for High Turnover

Time. Training. Resources. Energy. These are all things you are wasting when you have a high staffturnover rate. Sometimes, employees aren’t even fully trained before they decide to leave. Staff members learn what they can from your company, or all they can tolerate, then they pick up and leave. It can be disheartening to managers, colleagues and executives alike. As a recruiter or HR pro, it brings in additional accountability issues and frustration at a never ending requisition pile. Suffering from separation anxiety as a manager? Fifty-seven percent of companies see retention as a problem, so maybe something should be done about it. The problem: The finger is pointing at you. Your company is the problem, and it could be any one of these four things.

Unreasonable Workloads

High employee turnover should set off the alarms for your managers. Why? Because it could be a sign employees are taking on too much. High workloads can mean taking work home regularly just to keep the pace. Now, there will always be those occasions when taking work home is a must, but it should not be a regular event. You can do this by streamlining projects, hiring part-timers to file and do the menial work, or even giving projects to teams to work on together. At the very least, prioritize projects and assignments for your employees so they know which task is most important. Pay attention to redundant work and ensure that you aren’t giving multiple projects to a strong employee just because “they can handle it!”

Bad Managers

It seems a little counterproductive to spend money and time training someone to prevent the loss of training and time. Many managers have not learned the skill of interpersonal communication, a key skill when supervising employees or connecting with colleagues. Bad managers who don’t communicate with their employees are more likely to push those employees away from the company. When you train your managers, you train your employees as well and they are kept happy. Kimber Crumlish writes, “…of the 46% of [new hires] who failed within that first 18 months, 89% of the time it was for attitudinal reasons, and a mere 11% of the time for lack of skill.” This means, your employees come into positions with the ability to learn, but they leave because their managers are not trained well in interpersonal communication.

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Originally posted on Recruiter.com on March 24, 2014

photo credit: Kalexanderson via photopin cc

Maren Hogan

Maren Hogan is CEO of Red Branch and general Bad@$$

Maren Hogan is a seasoned marketer and community builder in the HR and Recruiting industry. Maren started Red Branch Media and, before she hired all the smiling faces you see below, she ran it on her own. In marketing for over 15 years, she has deep experience in strategic campaigns and a long-term, results-based operational approach.