5 People Driven Ways to Reduce Employee Turnover
It’s the start of a new work day and you’re ready to tackle your to-do list. Just as you grab your morning coffee and open your laptop to check your email inbox, you see that dreaded subject line from one of your most hardworking employees, “Letter of Resignation”. Your heart instantly drops and countless thoughts are racing across your mind. “She can’t leave, she’s the best employee I have”, “how can I get her to stay”, “what am I going to do now?”. What’s worse is that this isn’t the first employee that has left your team recently. In fact, employee turnover has grown higher within the past year, but you can’t pinpoint exactly why.
A few reasons why employees decide to leave companies include; a better job opportunity, family changes, career change, relocation, etc. These reasons may sound familiar since they’re commonly mentioned in exit interviews. The truth is that reasons like this don’t reflect the underlying internal problems that actually push employees out the door. Many employees leave jobs because they do not feel like they matter – as a person – to the company, and they don’t feel supported or made priority by management. In this post, you’ll learn 5 ways to reduce employee turnover by addressing the areas of your company that strongly impact the employee experience. If these areas are left ignored, great employees will also feel ignored and look for that “better job opportunity”.
[ctt template=”4″ link=”Y163G” via=”yes” ]Every manager isn’t a leader; and effective leaders lead with influence, intention, and service.[/ctt]-
Make Effective Leadership a Priority
Every manager isn’t a leader. If you want to be an effective leader, you must lead with influence, intention, and service. Your number one focus should be to serve your team. Have a leadership strategy and know what your leadership philosophy is. How do you serve your team? What are your values as a leader? What behavioral standards do you model? Leadership practices & habits impact employee experience and performance. Knowing (and being clear) on how you want to impact your team and why will help you lead your team more intentionally.
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Build a Company Culture that Matters to Employees
Most employees leave companies because they don’t feel connected. This disconnection occurs when there’s no meaning to the work being done. When your employees feel included in the changes and goals you’re promoting, their buy-in increases. Inclusion also helps you, as the leader, understand their thoughts and needs so that you can engage them better. I share 5 culture building activities that help add meaning to the workplace for employees in this blog. Maintaining a great company culture lowers the chances for high employee turnover. When employees feel connected to their work, it’s much harder for them to leave.
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Make Coaching a Priority for Professional Development
Implement a coaching program for leaders & employees in your workplace. Coaching provides an opportunity for goal & performance clarity. It also offers tools and resources that guide you to reach specific results. You can help employees reach professional development goals by aligning them with a coach (inside or outside the company) that supports them on a regular basis. For example, if you’re a leader who struggles with reaching team goals and keeping your employees engaged, this Intentional Leader Coaching Package would give you the strategic guidance needed to overcome those issues.
[ctt template=”4″ link=”Wpscb” via=”yes” ]Employees don’t leave jobs for “better opportunities”… They leave because they feel disregarded as a person in your company.[/ctt]-
Make Performance Goals Clear & Discuss Them Regularly
Neglecting conversations about performance goals throughout the year eliminates growth opportunities for employees; which isn’t fair to them. Most companies have annual performance review meetings with employees to rate and review their performance from the previous year. The problem is that this conversation only happens once a year and employees are usually left to assume how to reach management expectations going forward. Annual performance reviews sound good in theory. However, unless there’s an actionable plan to develop performance challenges over the next 12 months (post-review meeting), your employees are setup to fail. It’s important to keep communication about performance goals open and regular. When employees feel supported by management regularly, they’re more likely to stay motivated to reach performance goals and expectations.
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Make Work Engaging
Actively engaging your employees helps build a better company culture, increases customer satisfaction, and also decreases employee turnover. The key to employee engagement is to remain consistent, however, this can become challenging (read more about how you can stay consistent with employee engagement here). As a leader, you have tons of responsibilities. Although you don’t intend to lose connection with your employees, actively engaging them can easily fall to the bottom of your to-do list. Slacking on employee engagement is closely related to employee turnover. Avoid this mistake by planning your employee engagement efforts and making it a priority. This Employee Engagement Planning Packet will help you get started.
Employee Engagement Planning Packet
The Complete Guide to Plan & Execute Employee Engagement Efforts Consistently!
With over 50 employee engagement activities & gestures to choose from + planning templates to outline and schedule engagement plans for each employee as well as your team!
