Lower Your Employee Turn Over Rate by Doing These 3 Things

Employers who experience high employee turnover lose a lot of time and money to new hire searches, interviews, onboarding and training. Although this problem is commonly seen in the retail sector, employee attrition can occur in any industry and any type or size of business. A high employee turnover rate happens for a variety of reasons; some workers take on a job for extra cash before returning to school or while searching for a new job that is more in line with their career goals. Other workers get fed up with a company’s low wages, work culture, business mismanagement, substandard working conditions or lack of promotion opportunities.

Many business owners have found that the best way to retain more workers who possess the knowledge, skills and work ethic they need for success is by making their businesses more appealing to current employees and new hires. The following three tips can help you improve employee retention.

Celebrate Exemplary Work

Instead of merely saying “Good job!” to an employee who does well, go the extra mile by investing in service awards that provide a constant reminder that you appreciate your employees’ efforts. For example, you might hand out small awards like recognition certificates, buttons and cards as general everyday awards and then give out special awards at monthly meetings or host a yearly employee recognition awards banquet. Special awards include customized plaques, trophies and symbol and numeral awards. Or, you might give your employees branded items that represent your company in addition to specific individual or team employee contributions. Also, you might celebrate employee success online through social media or via an employee-specific digital yearbook.

Offer Employee Incentives

Another way to keep employees happy and motivated to stay is by offering various other types of incentives that workers typically value. For example, you might offer paid time off or a cash bonus to show recognition of an individual employee’s or team’s hard work after finishing an important task or project before deadline. You might offer gift cards or certificates to local restaurants and shops, hand out gourmet treats or provide discounts off the price of products or services, if applicable to your employee’s lives. Of course, incentives can be as simple as general employee appreciation perks like health insurance and education dollar-for-dollar employer cost matching, a wellness program, an on-site fitness center and daycare or options for employees to work split- or four-day work weeks instead of standard five-day, 40-hour schedules.

Create Positive Vibes

The majority of workers hate drudgery and negativity in the workplace, and leave businesses where they feel like the work or their co-workers are energy vampires. You can effortlessly improve your site’s work culture by promoting positive behaviors and removing negative, demotivating elements. For example, you and your managers can start by greeting employees positively at the start of their shifts and showing interest in their non-work lives. You might consider redesigning indoor and outdoor break zones so that they feature plants, artwork, comfortable seating and soothing music that help promote a more positive atmosphere and make it easier for employees to chat and feel relaxed on breaks. Lastly, you might require employees to participate in on- or off-site guest speaker seminars about improving negative events like conflict in the workplace by reducing office gossip and improving communication between co-workers.

Even if some of your past employees quit for reasons other than the ones stated above, your implementation of any of these ideas can only improve your business and convince current workers who are thinking about leaving to reconsider. Try one or all of these methods starting today.