Employees leaving is a natural part of today’s workplace. Sometimes people retire after serving your organization for several years, sometimes they want to seek out a new challenge, and other times they may be making a career move. None of these are red flags—but what happens when your organization is seeing increased or steady employee turnover? Learn the causes and costs of employee turnover—and how you can prevent it at your organization.
What Causes Employee Turnover (And Why Does It Matter)?
There are several different factors that could contribute to employee turnover, including:
- Poor job fit
- Poor culture fit
- Lack of career development
- Poor work-life balance
- Management changes
- Personal reasons
When it comes to people leaving, one of your biggest concerns is likely the cost of employee turnover—but it’s important to remember that cost doesn’t just mean monetary (although that matters, too!). The cost of employee turnover can manifest in other ways including lower employee morale and more difficulty in building your employer brand.
While interviewing, some candidates may ask candidly about the employee turnover your organization faces. If this happens, you want to be able to give them a favorable answer. A less than favorable answer might turn off a qualified candidate from being interested; they may be searching for an organization with more stability. In this case, the cost of employee turnover is losing out on qualified candidates.
If employees notice that there is an uptick in other employees leaving your organization—particularly if that turnover is isolated to one team—they might notice a corresponding downtick in their morale. Unless you’re able to backfill a role almost immediately, the departed employee’s responsibilities will usually fall to someone else who already has a full plate. The worst-case scenario? If this goes on for too long, you may find yourself with additional employees itching to leave because of a lack of work-life balance. The best thing you can do is prevent employee turnover before it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.
How Can You Prevent Employee Turnover?
There are several ways to prevent employee turnover and avoid its potential costs. We’ve listed a few of the most impactful below.
Ensure you are at parity with the market. Total compensation includes a variety of factors including base salary, bonuses, equity, and benefits. You may not always be the industry leader for every factor, but if you are significantly below the market for overall compensation, you may find your organization facing a higher rate of employee turnover.
Build a supportive and supporting culture. Employees want to know they are at an organization where they can grow. Ensure that they have transparent info about career paths and set up mentorship opportunities if possible. Additionally, developing employee resource groups (ERGs) can go a long way in making employees feel supported and like they have a network.
Use smarter recruitment software with programmatic capabilities. This will ensure your job ad is getting in front of the right candidates at the start of the recruitment process. If the person you hire is a good fit, they’re less likely to turn over quickly.
How Can AI Help Prevent This?
Let’s get into a little more specific detail of how programmatic recruiting can help good employees stick around and prevent the sometimes high cost of employee turnover.
One of the ways AI-powered recruitment software, like PandoLogic, is effective in helping to prevent employee turnover is by making sure the employee you hire is a good fit in the first place. It does this through programmatic job ad placement. That way, your job ad is not only getting in front of the right candidates on one job site—it’s getting in front of the right candidates on all the job sites they’re searching on.
The other, more indirect way that AI can help prevent employee turnover is through the time it will save your team. If your team has to spend less time on menial to-dos—like placing job ads—they can spend more time building out the resources employees look for in companies they want to remain at. Learn more about how AI software can improve employee retention.
The cost of employee turnover can be high. But the good news is, with some thoughtful planning and by taking advantage of modern technology, you can help to prevent it.