Spurn The Churn: Reducing Employee Turnover

Employee turnover is inevitable – not many people stay with one company forever anymore.  People leave for all sorts of reasons, but the top reasons people leave a job are addressable like their relationship with their boss or feeling unchallenged or unappreciated.  TheBalance.com cites the “Top 10 Reasons Why Employees Quit Their Jobs”[1] and the employee’s relationship with their boss tops the list.  In fact, relationships with management and coworkers are on the top of the list along with other controllable factors that can influence workforce performance.

Minimizing the churn that is within your control can dramatically impact your company’s bottom line in a good way.  According to an article published in the Wall Street Journal, “experts estimate it costs upwards of twice an employee’s salary to find and train a replacement.  And churn can damage morale among remaining employees.”[2]

As with personal health, prevention is the key.  In the case of turnover, this means doing a better job with who we hire and making the hard decisions regarding employees that need to be released.  The best advice from seasoned HR professionals is to “hire right the first time.”  I know … if this was as easy as it sounds, turnover reduction wouldn’t be such a popular discussion topic, but it is.

Having the right tools to identify performance issues that could lead to impending turnover has become a crucial part of the job.  What tools do we recommend in your business tool belt?  There is just one – a killer data analytics platform.

Data analytics may not come to mind as your typical HR tool.  Many in the field wouldn’t think that this is even necessary – but it is, and I’ll show you just a few of the ways companies use it as their secret weapon.

1. Identify Promotion, Reward and Salary Increase Opportunities. Valuing employees that go above and beyond is key if you want to keep them happily working for your company.  With the help of an insightful data analytics platform, managers can identify exceptional employees and reward them with greater responsibilities, raises, or promotions.  The by-product is a better working relationship with the boss and the company. 
2. Identify Training Opportunities. People learn at different rates and through different styles which makes a standard training program less effective.  Through the data analytics platform, we can set up alerts to trigger when policies are broken or detrimental recurring behaviors are identified.  Managers gain insights into the areas where additional training would benefit employees, as well as retraining employees that need to stop the behavior or practices that are out of policy or harmful to the business.  This way, issues are resolved before escalating to a level where employee termination is the only recourse.
3. Set Realistic Company Goals. Whether it is quarter over quarter, year over year, or day over day, sometimes company goals are established based on what looks good on paper instead of what is actually attainable.  Unrealistic goals can diminish employee morale, impact motivation and ultimately lead to employees leaving.  Using a data analytics platform, you can create performance reports across the entire organization at the level of individual staff members, at the store or district level, and then compare underperformers to over performers.  Create SMART[3] goals that you know will reflect the true value of your company and your people

Managers wear many hats – they recruit, train, deal with HR issues, manage staff to schedules and company policies – all while keeping an eye on business objectives and profits. That doesn’t mean managers have to have different tools for every job. 20/20 Data Analytics from Agilence is the only tool you’ll need to manage the business from staff performance to sales performance.  20/20’s seamless data integration allows managers to have total visibility over every aspect of the organization. The flexible, intuitive, and powerful analytics engine brings an unprecedented level of actionable business insight to any department, of any business, in any industry.

Spurn the churn with our secret weapon! Click here to learn more.

[1] The Balance.com – Top 10 Reasons Why Employees Quit Their Jobs

[2] Wall Street Journal – How To Reduce Employee Turnover

[3] SMART goals stand for – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely