There are a number of reasons why employees look for new jobs.
The most common that we hear are:
The role isn’t as sold at interview
Lack of development or training opportunities
Bad management
Low morale
You might be surprised to hear that money is rarely the sole motivator for someone seeking alternative employment.
With this in mind, what can you do to overcome the most common reasons for people leaving their jobs and retain staff and ensure a happy, productive and stable work force? Here are some things to think about.
The role isn't as described at interview
Have a stringent recruitment processes in place. This involves having well written job descriptions and person specifications in place for each proposed hire which detail the attributes and experience you are looking for. Make sure that these are agreed by the Hiring Manager as well as the senior team, if necessary, and that everyone is clear about the requirements of the role, what’s needed in terms of the hire, what’s expected of them once they’re on-board and there’s continuity as to how it’s described to applicants during the process.
Make sure what you’re looking for is thoroughly reflected in your advertising, understood by your recruitment consultant and made clear to the applicants throughout the recruitment process ~ and all decisions are made with the skills, experience and qualities you’re looking for in mind.
Lack of development of training opportunities
Ensure you have a robust appraisal system in place to measure employee performance and happiness. This will also make sure you fully understand where they are/where an individual wants to go in terms of their career. This should be an open conversation where you both give and gain feedback which should help you also get an insight into any potential issues they might have or that you might have within the business. Link appraisals to development plans.
Only you will know what you is feasible or relevant to offer in your business, but understand that a large proportion of the workforce hanker after ‘development’ and therefore consider what you can to do to ensure that your staff feel as though they have the opportunity to develop their skills and progress in their career. Options could include in-house training/coaching, cross training in other departments, funding industry related qualifications, succession planning/management training, promotion etc. Whilst there is a cost to this, there is also a cost to replacing staff of course.
Bad management
This could mean that the employee feels they are being badly managed, that the right processes are not in place or that the wrong people are in management roles.
Do exit interviews with any leavers to find out what the real problems are and be open to listening to what they have to say. Look for any patterns! Use the 1-2-1’s you have with employees to look for issues. Ask for constructive feedback on the management within the business and seek advice on improvements that could be made from the people within the business. It might also be worth seeking an opinion from an outsider – sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes?
Low morale
A happy workforce is a productive workforce. What can you do to improve morale, make your employees feel valued and bring your workforce together?
Very often it’s the little things that make a difference to employees.
Recognise the good work they do. Celebrate achievements!
Commit to improving internal communications
Have fun and arrange regular team nights out or team building activities.
As a hiring manager or business owner you’re likely to be super busy, why not empower a member of the team to be responsible for staff events and fun within the company?