When people come to SevenStar asking us to help in hiring, one of the things we look at is the retention of employees.  Retaining employees is more important than ever as we climb out of COVID;  you may have heard about the huge number of people who are looking to change jobs, popularly known as the Great Resignation.

We’ve all experienced the pain of losing a good employee, but what happens if more than one resigns? When turnover becomes a trend, the effects can be devastating for your business.

Some of the ways turnover hurts your bottom line:

• It costs time and money to recruit someone new

• The cost of lost knowledge held by the person leaving can be great, especially if your company is not dutiful in documenting processes and procedures.

• Training costs not only time for the new person but also the time current employees take out of their day to do the training.

• Mistakes are inevitably made by new employees as they learn the job and are given some independence. Some of these mistakes can impact the bottom line profit of the company.

• If the person is client-facing and you lose them, even if they don’t leave with the employee given the fact they are going to be working with someone else gives them the opportunity to say, “If I going to make a change, I might as well check out the competition.

Our calculator will show you exactly what poor employee retention or a bad hire costs your business.

So, what should you do?  We suggest you first assess your risk by doing an engagement survey.  Ask some net promotor score type questions like, “On a scale of one to 10 if you were offered a job with the same salary, same distance from home, same benefits, same title, etc. how likely are you to take it?”  Knowing how happy your employees are at work is vital.  Conducting Stay Interviews is another excellent way of finding out how your employees feel; giving you insight into what motivates your employees to stay with your organization, and what might cause them to leave.

Once you determine your risk, develop a retention plan.  You need to take a look at your managers and ensure they are implementing your vision for how employees are treated.  Employees don’t leave a company; they leave toxic managers.