Reducing Turnover: 5 Tips on Hiring and Keeping Good Employees

Turnover is a part of running a business. People come and go. Their circumstances and life goals change. Students graduate and move on to other cities. Dissatisfaction with pay or scheduling can be a factor as well. If high turnover at your place of business is frustrating you, you’re not alone. Many industries, including foodservice and retail have notoriously high turnover rates. It may be that it’s just the nature of the business. However, there are steps that you can take to hire and hold on to good employees. We’ll look at some ways to identify and hire those good people and keep them for the long term. The Man in the Mirror First off, look at yourself. How do you run your company? Are you an employer that creates a work environment that people enjoy coming to? Do you engage your employees and make them feel valued? Are you part of the team, or do you lock yourself in your office and keep your distance from the front line employees? Do you have a grievance process to address employee concerns or do you ignore them? Good employers are good leaders. If you don’t exhibit good leadership to your staff, you are setting yourself up for failure. Employees spend more time at your company than they do with their own spouses and families. It’s important to build your team and create an atmosphere where people can connect to you and to each other. Regular staff meetings and team building lead to employee satisfaction. Compensation Compensation includes much more than a paycheck. Benefits, time off and company perks (like discounts) are also a part of that. If you want to hire and keep good people on board with you, you must not only compensate them fairly for the work they do, you must also provide non-monetary compensation. Even seemingly small things like free coffee in the breakroom or sandwiches at staff meetings show your employees that you value them. If you provide incentives and employee appreciation programs,  employees have even more reason to invest themselves in the company goals. Hiring Shrewd interviewing and hiring practices will also help to ensure that you build a team that you can keep. Some amount of turnover is inevitable, but by having a good idea of the type of person who does well at the job and fits into your current team, you can greatly reduce turnover. Develop a model of the skillset and needs for your various positions and use that as a guideline when you are interviewing and hiring. A 60 or 90 day probationary period is also an excellent way to try out new people and evaluate them on the job. It should not take more than a month or two to know whether someone is suited to your team or is just going through the motions. Growth Employees are more likely to remain if they feel they have growth opportunities. Regular performance evaluations with pay increases based on merit will encourage employees to strive towards personal and company goals. Job satisfaction often depends upon one’s perception of their chances to attain a higher rank or salary in the company. Promote from within to keep your good people for the long term, and involve them in setting personal and professional goals during performance evaluations. When you promote someone, get their feedback on the job they’re leaving behind so you can train the person that follows them into that position to do a great job. Training A great employee training program is another way to keep good employees. Educate your employees on where their piece of the puzzle fits into the whole of your company. Let them have all the tools and information they need to do a stellar job. One great way to accomplish training is to have employees attend a new employee training, then spend time with someone and observe (shadow) them on the job. Keep in mind that people have different ways of learning, so your training has to be able to reach those different styles. There’s nothing more damaging than to throw a new employee into the hot seat without the tools they need to do a good job. Set your employees up for success by giving them proper and thorough training.