Employee turnover is a serious matter. And it\u2019s a very expensive matter.\u00a0 It affects everything -profitability, productivity, customer service, quality control, and more.\u00a0 Yet too many of us treat turnover as an unavoidable annoyance.\u00a0 It\u2019s true that some turnover is a good thing.\u00a0 From time to time, we need to weed out the people who don\u2019t belong and replace them with people who can bring in new thinking and fresh ideas.\u00a0 It\u2019s also true that very few people are going to stick with the same company for 30 years and hope to collect a gold watch.\u00a0 So we tell ourselves, \u201cPeople come and they go.\u00a0 That\u2019s just the way it is.\u00a0 It\u2019s just part of business.\u201d\u00a0 But is it really?\u00a0 We can\u2019t prevent all turnover, but isn\u2019t it possible we might be able to slow it down a bit?\u00a0 For some thoughts on how to do that, please continue reading below.<\/p>\n
Turnover can be good or bad.\u00a0 When we\u2019re talking about inventory, turnover is very good.\u00a0 But when we\u2019re talking about employees, turnover is bad.\u00a0 Very, very bad.<\/strong><\/p>\n As a starting point, try dividing employee turnover into two categories: unpreventable turnover, and preventable turnover.\u00a0 Unpreventable turnover happens when an employee leaves due to something that is out of our control.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s a job or salary offer that we simply can\u2019t match.\u00a0 Or maybe an employee and his or her family are moving out of the area for reasons unrelated to the company.\u00a0 On the other hand, preventable turnover occurs when an employee leaves because he or she just doesn\u2019t like working for us anymore.\u00a0 These are people who want a different working experience than we provide, so they go looking for something else.\u00a0 It\u2019s this category we want to track to discover if there\u2019s any discernable pattern to these voluntary defections.<\/p>\n We should be doing exit interviews . . . always.\u00a0 And they should be done by someone who has strong interview skills.\u00a0 The problem is, a departing employee may not want to burn bridges by getting into a contentious discussion.\u00a0 So he or she may avoid talking about the real reason for leaving the company by offering up an innocent-sounding reason instead.\u00a0 A skilled interviewer, in a non-threatening way, will dig for the real reason an employee is leaving.\u00a0 In the case of a preventable departure, the interviewer will want to learn:<\/p>\n Again, we not talking about the unpreventable departures here, only the preventable ones.\u00a0 The question we want to ask ourselves is, \u201cIf this employee quit for reasons we could have prevented or corrected, why didn\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n Conducting exit interviews with everyone who leaves your company can be a difficult and time-consuming task, but if they help you make a dent in employee turnover, even a small dent, the payoff is well worth the effort.\u00a0 Consider the benefits of a reduction in voluntary departures.<\/p>\n The message here is simple.\u00a0 Don\u2019t accept that employee turnover \u201cis what it is.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s not reasonable to think that you can eliminate turnover, but you should be looking for ways to reduce it.\u00a0 Consider setting a target for turnover just as you set targets for revenue and expenses.\u00a0 Even a small improvement can have a significant impact throughout your organization and ultimately, to your bottom line.\u00a0 Salvaging good employees before they have one foot out the door requires an investment of time and effort, but the potential ROI is too great to ignore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Employee turnover is a serious matter. And it\u2019s a very expensive matter.\u00a0 It affects everything -profitability, productivity, customer service, quality control, and more.\u00a0 Yet too many of us treat turnover as an unavoidable annoyance.\u00a0 It\u2019s true that some turnover is a good thing.\u00a0 From time to time, we need to weed out the people who<\/p>\n\n
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