This second part of our two-part series will provide you with five more ways you can effectively reduce regrettable turnover by building the kind of company culture that employees don’t want to leave.
Read part one here: 5 Tips For Preventing Turnover [Part 1]
1. Hiring for Talent and Fit
The only way you can be highly intentional about creating the culture you want to have is to hire the right people.
Not only do you need to hire talented people who have what it takes to achieve excellence in each role, but you also need to make sure they are a strong fit for your culture. For example, if your company values speed, innovation, and constant growth, you should never hire an individual who is analytical, measured, and cautious by nature (no matter how talented they are). The culture fit would be all wrong!
This can be a tall order, but a recent Bamboo HR study showed that 91% of managers say an employee’s culture fit is even more important than their experience or skills.
To hire people who are a great fit for your company:
- Include your employees in the recruitment and selection process. Invite anyone who is passionate about your culture and interested in helping bring the right people on board to participate and find ways for them to interact with your candidates.
- Build recruitment ads that are written in a way that will specifically attract people who share your company’s mission and core values.
- Film a recruitment video that shows what it’s really like to work here.
2. Providing Great Onboarding
Turnover is expensive and damaging to your culture, but it can be prevented. On average, 30% of new hires don’t make it past their first year, but a good onboarding program will increase the chances of your new employees staying for at least 3 years by 69%!
You’ll want to create an onboarding plan that is customized for your unique culture. Here are a few other techniques we recommend:
- Provide your new hire with a list of unwritten rules that only current employees understand. For example, is it okay to turn your video camera off on large company video calls? Is it okay to use smiley face emojis in a business email? Is it okay to give your family a tour of the office during business hours? What is acceptable in one organization may appear rude or unprofessional in another, and a new employee has no way of knowing these things.
- Encouraging questions. New hires tend to avoid asking questions, especially during the first few weeks, because they don’t want to appear needy, slow, or annoying. This prevents them from doing their job as well as they could and wastes brainpower on worrying. Combat this by encouraging new employees to frequently ask questions (even the “silly” ones) and give them explicit permission to ask the same question more than once if necessary.
- Pair your new hires with an "onboarding buddy." This will help them feel more connected, increase their confidence, increase informal knowledge sharing, accelerate productivity, and increase employee retention. Microsoft discovered that those who were paired with an onboarding buddy were 23% more satisfied with their experience than those who were left on their own.
3. ProvidIng Effective Feedback
Even though effective feedback increases engagement, productivity, and profitability, many employees feel they don’t receive enough of it at work. A recent Office Vibe survey found that 65% of employees would like more feedback than they currently get.
- Set aside time each week to provide people with feedback on their performance. This will allow you to recognize what they are doing well and brainstorm ideas for growth. Effective feedback should be frequent, positive, strengths-based, specific, and conversational.
- We encourage you to make a plan and create reminders for yourself to ensure you are providing positive feedback and recognition to your team each week. This is a great way to show your employees you value their contributions and improve employee engagement!
4. Managing people with the Platinum Rule
Most of us were raised by the Golden Rule, which told us to treat others in the way we want to be treated ourselves. That’s not bad guidance, of course, but if you are managing people, it just doesn’t cut it. Each person we employ is wired differently than the others (and probably different than you), so while you may enjoy contests at work, one of your direct reports may not. While many on your team may enjoy talking about their families, one person may note.
- Instead, commit to managing your people by the Platinum Rule, which tells us to treat others in the way they want to be treated.
- Use an instrument that will help you understand things about each of your employees, like how they want to communicate, whether they enjoy public recognition, how want to grow, and the ways they prefer to learn.
5. Avoiding Burnout
Burnout is more than just a feeling of stress at work. It is an unshakeable feeling that tends to follow you home from work and turns into intense feelings of dread on Sunday night if you know you have to work again on Monday.
In 2019, after four decades of debate among experts, the World Health Organization recognized "Burnout" as an official medical diagnosis, characterized by feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance or negativism related to one's job, and reduced professional efficacy. A recent Gallup survey showed that out of the 7,500 employees they studied, 23% of them reported feeling burned out. Not only is that unhealthy for our employees, but it also hurts the organization!
To prevent feelings of burnout at work:
- People need to know how to succeed to feel fulfilled at work. When it's not clear to an employee how they can succeed, it's harder for them to be confident, enjoy their work, and know that they're doing a good job. Give them clear expectations for what success looks like and specific timelines for them to work within.
- When we use our strengths in our work, we feel strong, and we can grow by as much as ten times. When we are forced to use a weakness often, we feel depleted and "weak." Consider the unique strengths of your employees and think about how you can help them use those innate talents more often. Also, consider if there are responsibilities that call on their weaknesses that you can take off their plate so they can focus their energy more productively.
- Neuroscience shows that even 60- to 90-second breaks are enough to break the cycle of cumulative stress. Stanford's Behavior Design Lab advocates using intermittent micro-breaks or “brain breaks” for adults in the workplace to prevent burnout. Consider building these into meetings and training.
Conclusion
A modest amount of turnover is expected. Plus, it’s good to bring on new people with different perspectives, ideas, and capabilities. However, turnover rates near 35% can be costly and reflect poorly on your organization in more ways than one.
Use these tips, along with the first five, to help prevent turnover at your organization.