Managing a High Turnover Environment

We’ve all experienced working in an environment where you become part of the team and submerge yourself in the work experience so much that it becomes like a second home. Your work mates become your friends, you build a trust relationship with them and your managers, and you really give your job your all. Most offices will try to create this kind of atmosphere if they’re forward thinking and want their staff to be comfortable coming into work. But what happens when this isn’t enough?

Unfortunately in today’s fast paced economy, and growth especially when working in the online industry, staff turnover is part of the package. It’s very often out of our control. As a manager or as a company, you could be working super hard to make sure the environment is right, the work package is right – but there will always be things you can’t control. Managers often won’t have control over aspects like salaries, where in comparison to the competition, the company may not pay their employees as much. Or you may be working in a high stress environment; which starts taking its toll on the people in your team.

Having a high turnover rate is certainly a warning flag for leadership and it most certainly is environmental as well.

RETAIN THE KNOWLEDGE

As a manager you need to ask yourself the question ‘What is being lost?’  The obvious answers are time, money, people – but what’s really going is the knowledge you accumulate, and you want to make sure that you don’t lose that. Aspects like time, cost and head count should be a corporate focus. The company needs to take a look into what the high degree of turnover is costing them. What you can do as a manager is try to retain people, but also try to make sure you don’t lose the knowledge that you build up through your people.

To help retain the knowledge your people have, and that some people may be taking away with them when they leave, focus more on teamwork and mentoring. Help people work alongside each other and share their knowledge through shadowing. This can also work in your favor in terms of developing your employees. If you have different people working in different roles, let them share their knowledge with each other and learn about one another’s jobs. You have good staff who demonstrate good practice on a daily basis – use it. You can even put your top performers together, and they will learn from each other different tricks of the trade to become even better.

There’s loads you can do here. I mentioned before that there’s certain things a manager can’t control when it comes to losing staff to competition. As a company you may not be able to compete when it comes to salaries, or environment even; but you can still compete in investing in your staff. Provide development, training, balanced feedback, reward people who perform well on a regular basis. In short, appreciate and invest in the development of your people. Some people may still leave if they need more money, but you’ll have done everything possible to make it a hard decision for them to leave, because they appreciate you for appreciating them.

FOCUS ON GOOD ONBOARDING

The second thing you will want to focus on in a high turnover environment is to make sure you completely nail the onboarding process. The first step here is to make sure you’re choosing the right people for your operation or environment. Don’t just assess the skill they present to you on paper, or their previous experience in the field, but look at their attitude and their personality. This can be challenging of course because in an interview setting, people will often try to present themselves as attractively as possible. A good interviewer will learn to see past this. It also helps to show the person you’re interviewing the environment they’ll be working in. Take them around the office whilst having a chat; let them see what they can expect. More often than not, people who don’t connect with your environment will weed themselves out on their own. A fun, energetic person won’t like a serious setting, or vice versa.

Do focus on the first couple of weeks of someone’s employment. Often, organizations will miss this opportunity; they’ll hire the right person but they slip within the first month of employment – where the experience for the employee is confusing, disorganized and they’re putting them with the wrong people. You’ll have a potentially good employee, but you’ve started them off with a bad taste in their mouth, and most times you can’t overcome that impression.

Take a very good look at your onboarding procedure. Are your new starters being introduced to everybody around the office? Are their logins set up correctly ahead of time? Do they have the supplies they need to get started? Don’t let your new people walk in and everyone acts like it’s a surprise that they’re there. Be prepared. The time that you invest onboarding people correctly is time saved down the road with exit interviews, turnover and hiring even more people. Pair new starters with the right people from the beginning. Have a flawless training program in place to get them on board properly. Introduce them to the community. Make sure you’re well set up.

Also try to mix up their training sessions. Learning styles vary from person to person. Some people will remember more if what you’re presenting them is visual, or if they have to go through some exercises to build up their knowledge of the topic you’re presenting. Don’t just sit them in a classroom for whatever amount of time you train your staff for. Take them out on the floor, sit them for side-by-side sessions with people who have good productivity and quality levels; let them listen in to calls, watch them work. Let your staff share tips and insight with your new starters. It’s also a great way to make sure your new recruits get to know your staff whilst they’re joining, so they don’t feel isolated once they join the work force.

DO IT FROM THE HEART

As cheesy as it sounds, people can feel you’re doing things because you want to see them grow and develop within your company. Whether they’re new or people who’ve been with you for a longer period of time, make sure you show them you care and appreciate them and the work they do for you.

So two things, make sure you keep the knowledge in-house, and start your new starters off the right way to help you reduce turnover. Invest your time in the start of their journey, not in their end, and you should see a happier environment building up in your work place.