Losing an employee sets you back by a couple of months at least. There’s the expense of finding, on-boarding, training a replacement and then there is a learning curve finally getting adjusted to the culture of an organization till one employee becomes 100% productive.
As the manager needs to prove that the new employee is better, the quest for getting the best employee replacement results in a significantly higher cost and slowly we realize that the overall labor cost for the same job becomes high.
Hence it becomes important to retain your performing employees. Retaining your best employees starts with understanding why people leave.
Here are six of the top reasons:
1. Growth & Security
People love to work for an organization which provides growth and security. People want to feel that they’re growing in their professional life and this comes with the growth of the organization. They want to have something to aspire to.
If there’s no career eco system for growth, they know they’ll need to seek it somewhere else. In the meantime, they’re far more likely to be bored, unhappy, and resentful–things that effect performance and the entire team’s morale.
2. Work Life Balance We talk of work life balance all the time and end up overloading the most capable high performing employee resulting in burnout, so the employees who were the most productive, now become attrition risks and if we do not provide then with growth then we lose the employees.
3. Frequent Changes in org design
There’s nothing more frustrating than a workplace filled with visions and big dreams, but no translation of those aspirations into the strategic goals that make them achievable. We have all seen organizations which are constantly changing in order to meet the optimized structure and end up causing a lot of confusion to the masses. Path to achieving the goal can be different as long as the goal remain constant, employees view frequent changes as distortion of long term vision.
4. Lack of recognition
Appreciation is a fundamental human need. Employees respond to appreciation expressed through recognition of their good work because it confirms their work is valued. When employees and their work are valued, their satisfaction and productivity rises, and they are motivated to maintain or improve their good work. When you fail to recognize employees, you’re not only failing to motivate them but also missing out on the most effective way to reinforce great performance.
5. Leadership Trust Factor
We have all heard that employees join the organization and leave the manager. Trust is the single most essential element to our ability to deliver extraordinary results, trust is integral to building high-performance teams because it enables an organization to work as a well-oiled machine. This becomes very important in all leaders as trust in the dreams of the organization leads to performance which help organizational achieve the vision.
6. No visibility of Development Plan
People want to learn and feel it is the organizations responsibility to provide the support for the learning activity. Career progression visibility becomes an important motivating factor for the employees who would want to look for a long career in the organization. A strong development plan is one which ensures that the employee becomes more efficient, productive and useful for the future needs of the organization.
Hiring the right people for the job and retaining good employees will save a company thousands of dollars in the long run. Employees that enjoy what they do and the atmosphere in which they work are more likely to remain employed with their company. Retention strategies are important because they help create a positive work environment and strengthen an employee’s commitment to the organization
The cost of happy employees winds up being priceless.