Why have you got such a low employee retention rate?

People leave their jobs for many reasons but if you notice a lot of your employees leaving all at once or that none of your employees stay with the company for longer than a year, it sounds like there’s a problem that needs addressing. So why have you got such a low employee retention rate?

Research by Profile Resourcing¹ found that the top reasons people left their current employment were due to:

• Better opportunities elsewhere
• Poor company culture
• Feeling under-appreciated

How can you combat these issues to retain staff?

One method to prevent employees from looking for opportunities elsewhere is by creating them within your own company. 93% employees said they would stay with a company longer if their employer invested in career progression.² This is a vital area for improvement as not only does it benefit your staff, it benefits your company to grow talent internally instead of having to seek and recruit it. Here are a few ways you can promote career progression in your company:

• Up-skill existing staff by offering apprenticeships
• Encourage job shadowing
• Offer employee rotation opportunities

The Culture Economy report stated a third of British employees left their organisations due to poor company culture³. Companies that have been praised for their culture retain talent for longer, have greater chemistry within their teams and are overall more successful. Ways you can improve company culture include:

• Renewing company policies with employee input
• Improving company diversity and inclusion
• Introducing employee benefits
• Encouraging employee feedback at all levels

Showing you appreciate your staff costs you nothing and is proven to have a profound effect on team morale. Reward Gateway found that 70%⁴ of employees said team morale can improve massively just from Managers saying thank you more. Other methods include:

• Staff rewards like days out or employee discounts
• Expressing appreciation directly to your employees or on social media
• Employee awards- celebrate small wins

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should help you to answer why your employee retention rate is so low and how to fix it. If you need help assessing your HR, try our free HR Health Check, for a full report on risk areas in your HR.

References

1 https://profileresourcing.co.uk/blog/the-top-10-reasons-employees-leave-their-jobs-and-how-to-combat-them/

2 https://www.weekly10.com/is-slow-career-progress-destroying-employee-engagement-in-my-business/#:~:text=This%20supports%20findings%20from%20the,employer%20invested%20in%20their%20careers.

3 https://www.uktech.news/news/a-third-of-uk-workers-leave-their-jobs-due-to-poor-company-culture-20180412#:~:text=The%20report%20found%20that%20a,to%20have’%20in%20their%20business.

4 https://www.benefitnews.com/news/workers-willing-to-leave-a-job-if-not-praised-enough