How to Find the Causes of High Employee Turnover and Fix It

Turnover and retention rates are issues that every business leader has to deal with from time to time. However, the Coronavirus pandemic has created an atmosphere of constant fear and uncertainty, forcing employees to question their decisions and core values and rearranging priorities. This is why many businesses have faced skyrocketing turnover rates over the past two years. 

In addition, the possibility of remote work has opened a global job market to millions of employees, especially in the IT industry, encouraging many to start looking for more rewarding work environments.

If you’re dealing with soaring turnover rates in the middle of the Great Resignation, the first step towards mitigating it is to respect your employees. It would be best to remind yourself that your employees are your most valuable asset and that you should consider them your business partners rather than replaceable resources.

In other words, you should always invest in upskilling your current teams before you decide to hire and onboard new team members because you’ll gain highly skilled employees who will be devoted to your company. 

If you want to learn more about the Great Resignation trend causing skyrocketing turnover rates learning how to battle this burning issue, keep reading. Here, you’ll find all the answers you need to retain top talent by your side, working together to build a successful business. 

What Drives the Great Resignation?

The Great Resignation isn’t a new phenomenon. Employees were leaving their jobs because of inadequate compensation or burnout long before the Covid-19 breakout. The pandemic changed circumstances have only made things worse, putting this issue in the spotlight.

Therefore if you’re facing higher turnover rates, you have to scratch the surface and tackle underlying issues that make your employees leave. There is no quick fix for the serious problem. However, here are some practical steps you can take.

It would be best if you focused on employees’ physical and mental health, creating opportunities for their professional and personal growth. You can retain hard-working employees and attract top talent by taking these steps.

Various Reasons for Turnover

The lack of professional development opportunities and slim paychecks are common reasons for quitting a job. The COVID-19 pandemic added reasons for leaving like burnout, health scare, anxiety, and lack of remote work options to this list.

The last one especially rings true for older employees who may rather quit their jobs than return to the office due to health concerns.

Besides this generational division, there’s a difference between employees who decide to leave their jobs within the first six months in a company and those who quit long after this checkpoint.

Employees from the second category usually have personal reasons for quitting, like the need for a career change or the wish to spend more time with their families. However, employees quitting in the first six months may highlight your cultural weaknesses recognized during the hiring or onboarding process. This early turnover clearly shows that you’ve failed to retain employees after investing in recruiting and onboarding them. 

The bad news is that there’s no universal solution for increased turnover rates.

The good news is that there are several actionable steps that you can take to prevent your employees from leaving, whatever their reason may be.

Flexibility Is the Keyword for Higher Retention

The remote work option has gained global popularity for all good reasons. Employees who earn the chance to work from home enjoy that they are the masters of their time, deciding when and how to work. For this reason, a traditional 40-hour and 5-day work week has become an outdated and unwanted concept. 

Numbers state the same since 74% of American workers say they would leave their current job to work in a company offering a 4-day workweek.

And they would make a wise decision. An experiment on a 4-day workweek conducted in Iceland proved that employees who have an additional day off are happier, healthier, and less stressed while their productivity levels remain high.

Besides shortening the traditional workweek, you should consider abandoning strict 9-5 work hours. One of the positive sides of remote work is that employees can start and finish working on their own accord. This flexibility usually results in higher productivity because employees dedicate their most productive hours to work while spending more time with family and friends.

Also, the number of hours spent at work doesn’t have to indicate high productivity or outstanding performance. 

Instead of focusing on the time spent at work, you should pay attention to the outcomes your employees deliver. In the project-based industry, it doesn’t matter how many hours employees spend at work. It’s their results that count.

Support Employee Wellbeing

This should be your top priority without saying so. The severe circumstances around the Covid-19 pandemics have stressed the importance of empowering employees. Your employees have gone through a lot in the past two years, having to adapt to working from home while constantly worrying about their health. 

This can easily result in disengagement, leading to higher turnover rates. The Harvard Business Review research finds that 75% of Gen Z and 50% of Millennial employees have left their job due to mental health issues.

This is why you should focus on creating a safe and supportive work environment for your teams. 

You can show your employees that you care for their wellbeing in numerous ways. Offering mental health leave or making regular check-ins can be practical first steps.

As those in charge of creating employee wellbeing programs, HR leaders need to perceive employees as a “whole person” if they want to mitigate turnover. This means they must consider a wide range of employees’ physical, mental, social, spiritual, and emotional needs. They need to see coworkers as complex beings looking for new experiences and growth opportunities.

The Importance of Conversation

You can decrease your turnover rates. But you can’t expect to eliminate it. HR managers can do their best to convince employees to stay with the company. But some of them will leave anyway. 

When this happens, try your best to find the reasons behind the resignation. Exit interviews should be a common practice in your company, and you should have them in voluntary and involuntary termination cases. 

Lead an open and confidential conversation with an employee leaving your company. You may get their honest opinion about the things that bother them, so you can take steps and make necessary changes for the future. 

Exit interviews are also crucial for your brand image. By giving your employees a chance to share their final opinions, you show them that you can take negative feedback, learn from it and work on improvements. Ending a professional relationship on a positive note is an effective way to make a positive last impression. 

Final Words

In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, HR professionals have faced skyrocketing turnover rates due to the Great Resignation trend. The pandemic challenging circumstances have changed the workplace perspective irreversibly, driving employees to seek more flexibility at work and have an increased work/life balance. 

So you need to focus on these employees’ needs and offer flexible work arrangements, making employee wellbeing your top priority if you want to attract and keep top performers. 

You also need to maintain open and honest communication even when your employees are leaving to understand better potential issues that you need to address and end your relationship on a positive note.

 

Dijana Milunovic is a Content Writer at Insightful. 

 

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