How to stop employee turnover

Benefits and compensation make up only a fraction of worker satisfaction. Sometimes, you can reduce turnover by increasing pay, but in the long run it’s the company culture that drives employee retention.  Instead, learn how to stop employee turnover by listening to, celebrating, and investing in your workforce, day in and day out.

Prevent turnover with consistency

Job insecurity creates anxiety and fear in the workplace. When workers feel like they may lose their jobs, they’re more likely to look for opportunities elsewhere.

The best way to foster job security is to operate your business with a high level of consistency. Here are some best practices when it comes to enforcement of standards, practices, and policies:

• Enforce workplace policies fairly and consistently.
• Conduct performance evaluations at a regular cadence.
• Use the same performance evaluation criteria each time.
• Promptly notify workers when policies change.
• Provide regular updates regarding company events, changes, and more.
• Regularly recognize employees for their contributions.

There are so many areas where you can eliminate uncertainty with consistency. In my experience, most employees accept rules if you apply them to everyone the same way. By eliminating anxiety, you make it easier for your workers to focus on performing their tasks.

Invest in your people

The word “investment” often signifies a financial cost but that’s not always the case. In fact, there are just as many ways to invest in your workforce without money as there are with money. It just depends on the work environment.

These are just some of the investments, financial or otherwise, that you can make to prevent employee turnover:

• Provide access to health, legal, and similar services
• Cross-train workers in several departments or processes
• Offer competitive salaries and benefit packages
• Subsidize continuing education (CE) credits or post-secondary degrees
• Create a mentor program for new employees
• Host skill-building workshops
• Upgrade outdated equipment

Prioritize growth and learning

One thing that causes turnover is when workers feel they’ve hit the “ceiling” of what they can do or achieve within the company. So, you need to destroy the illusion that there’s a ceiling to begin with.

Make continuous growth and learning a priority by incorporating it into all your team meetings and communications. For example, you can set time aside each week for a 30 minute or 1 hour development course. Or maybe you can run an internal innovation challenge that fosters creativity and gets workers thinking outside the box.

If your company has a structured career path progression, consider having variable compensation and other incentives available. You don’t want workers to feel like they’ve hit their potential. If you keep them continuously learning and growing, they’ll have more of a reason to stick around for the long haul.

Keep a short feedback loop

Sometimes, employees make the decision to leave quickly and without warning. That’s why it’s super important to keep a short feedback loop with the people on your team. Here’s what that looks like:

• Checking in with each of your employees weekly
• Asking your workers how they feel about their job
• Talking openly about future career plans
• Having an open-door policy
• Building positive relationships that allow workers to be honest and transparent

Even if you can’t prevent employee turnover, you can still improve the likelihood of getting more advance notice by taking this approach. When turnover happens, hopefully you’ll be better prepared to adjust and fill the position if necessary.

Celebrate the team

Another way you can prevent employee turnover is to create a positive and inclusive environment. It’s important to recognize that you can’t make your workers happy. But you can improve morale by focusing on the positives of the job. Here are some examples of how to stop employee turnover by celebrating the team:

• Recognize individual contributions to the team.
• Celebrate achievements in a public way.
• Express appreciation every day, in both meetings and private conversations.
• Discuss failures from a growth perspective, rather than a blame and shame mentality.
• Be vocal about all the things your team is doing right.

Imagine if you went to work every single day and felt like nothing you did mattered. Imagine that you never felt part of the team and that no one really cared about your individual contribution. In any workplace, whether collaborative or not, it’s important to make workers understand how much they mean to you.

Fostering a positive, loving, and inclusive environment is the number one way you can prevent turnover and build unbelievable community. That way, even when turnover does happen, there will be nothing but love, respect, and appreciation at the other end.