Can You Predict and Prevent Employee Turnover?

If you’ve ever lost an employee whose work was essential to the project or team, you understand how challenging it can be to find a replacement.

The costs of separation, replacement and training can be up to twice as much as the departing employee’s compensation, making turnover expensive.

The cost can be pretty high when a person decides to leave an employer that doesn’t want them to go.

Professionals in high demand who receive competitive job offers typically have a unique combination of experience and qualifications, and when they go, there are huge shoes to fill.

There isn’t much we can do once the employee has left. So, we examine the elements that influence employee retention and the methods for measuring and tracking turnover.

How do you predict employee turnover?

Employee turnover rates can be calculated in several different ways.

The most popular method is dividing the total number of workers who left the company in a specific period by the typical number of workers in the same period.

You can use the percentage returned by this to compare various periods or organizational divisions in your business.

The number of employees who have left the organization in a specific period can also be divided by the initial employee count to determine the employee turnover rate. This method is helpful if you wish to compare turnover rates between various organizations.

After determining the staff turnover rate, you can begin evaluating the factors that affect it.

Why do employees resign?

Knowing the reasons behind employee departures is crucial because a high turnover rate could indicate that employees are unhappy with their jobs.

Employers would be wise to identify ways to retain their present staff on board because it takes time and effort to locate new personnel to fill these positions.

Employers can directly address a recurrent problem and create a more enjoyable work environment by being aware of why people depart.

These are the main explanations given by workers for leaving their jobs. So, if you’re an HR personnel looking to understand why, put yourself in your employees’ shoes and imagine these scenarios:

1. Requiring a greater challenge

You start becoming familiar with your tasks and responsibilities after working at the same job for a while.

You may begin to feel that you are ready for a more significant challenge after there is not much left to learn in your current career. This is a typical aspect of career development, mainly when you develop an interest in picking up new talents.

2. Searching for a better-paying job

It could be time to find new employment if you believe you are being underpaid for your work.

Similarly, you might be prepared to take on more significant obligations and the increased salary that comes with them.

You can determine that you need to earn more if your circumstances change or your family expands to cover your living expenses.

3. Feeling uninspired

It’s possible that an opportunity that initially inspired you could soon leave you feeling uninspired. Finding a new job can help in rediscovering your enthusiasm for your career.

Because you might not have the opportunity to work on significant projects at your current company, your next employer’s beliefs and mission need to be compatible with your own.

4. Looking to advance their careers and their jobs

If the amount of promotions or educational opportunities available at your current employer is constrained, you might wish to look for another job.

To be fulfilled, you need room to improve your profession. Good businesses provide opportunities for continuing education, such as lectures, seminars, workshops, and even tuition reimbursement.

5. Needing better work-life balance

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance requires making time for your friends, family, and hobbies. You might discover that your manager calls you frequently after hours, or you put in a lot of overtime.

This can eventually interfere with your personal time and leave you feeling exhausted. However, you can regain this balance by looking for new employment that respects employees’ free time.

How can HR prevent employee turnover

Predicting turnover can get tricky.

But once you get all the data needed, you can transform these figures into actionable insights that may help you devise strategies to prevent a high turnover rate.

How? We’ve outlined some steps below:

1. Observe the industry average

It is crucial to start with a solid understanding of the business and the industry. Then, compare your estimated turnover rates to the industry average once you have calculated them.

Remember that a certain percentage of resignations is natural and not always bad; an example of this would be when underperformers depart the organization.

However, you must take action immediately if you lose staff considerably more frequently than your rivals.

2. Compare turnover rates

Another excellent source of data is comparing staff turnover rates between departments and various employee demographics such as their roles, ages, and genders.

Finding out which groups are more likely to quit may be helpful so you may take action and possibly stop the unwelcome departures.

The more precisely and successfully you can conduct strategies, the better you will be able to understand the causes of turnover.

For this reason, you should collect information on variables that may enhance or decrease turnover.

Taking the same measures throughout the entire organization may be difficult (and unnecessary). Still, by identifying the issue’s root, you may develop strategies specifically aimed at groups with higher turnover risk.

3. Strategically tackle turnover

Identifying and prioritizing “strategic groups” of employees may be a good idea if you don’t have the resources to deal with staff turnover.

You can look into employees whose role is strategic for the project, department, or the entire organization and who are difficult to replace.

The first group of employees to be targeted should be those that fit both the strategic group and a profile at risk of leaving.

Further investigation of your staff is necessary to determine the causes of turnover.

Before an employee departs, they must understand why they are leaving.

Utilize employee engagement survey tools to get direct feedback from your staff on how they feel about your business.

For example, you may develop ways to prevent the most outstanding performers from leaving by using employee attrition surveys to learn what makes your employees unhappy.

To summarize

When projecting employee turnover rate, human resources specialists should consider several criteria. Understanding and keeping a close eye on these elements can help your HR team create retention and attrition reduction strategies.

Predicting and preventing employee turnover is an essential matter that HR needs to spearhead.

So, to give them all the time to review and assess your company’s turnover rate (and its contributing factors), why don’t you tap Hezum to power your day-to-day HR operations?

From onboarding, time management to securing your company’s pertinent documents, Hezum can do it all, leaving your HR team with more time in their hands.

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