High turnover is rapidly becoming a problem for business owners. Turnover rates are increasing and are now almost 30 percent annually. When you factor in the financial burden of having to recruit and train new talent, plus the time and productivity lost getting new hires up to scratch, turnover can be seriously costly to your business.
But there’s also a cultural cost to your company, too. When employees are constantly coming and going, it can be hard to build solid working relationships among colleagues. Less cooperative problem solving happens and loyalty is shaky. People don’t feel attached to their jobs, so they’re less hesitant to leave.
So, the question then becomes: What can employers do to reduce these high turnover rates? The best solutions are built out of a thorough diagnosis of the problem.
Here are some possible reasons your company’s turnover is high along with some solutions we recommend.
Problem: High Levels of Work Stress
Of all the problems that plague employees in their day-to-day working lives, the most prevalent among them is simply stress. Worker stress is only increasing as time goes on and the lines between “working” and “not working” grow ever blurrier. Not only does high stress cause employees to quit, it also increases the number of sick days workers take and can also increase the number of workplace accidents and injuries. It’s hard to be at your best when you’re a bundle of raw nerves!
Solution: Improved Work-Life Balance Policies
Reducing workplace stress is actually one of the easier problems to address because it involves changes that are quite small. All you really have to do is encourage your employees to take more time off! Ensure that they use up their paid vacations. Draw a hard line between work time and down time and encourage employees to disconnect more often. And suggest some relaxation techniques while they’re at work. On-site yoga or meditation classes or even spaces to get in a quick power nap can really help recharge those batteries and get your employees back to working at the top of their game.
Problem: Toxic Company Culture
Workplace culture can be a much more complicated issue to address. Culture is complex and a toxic culture is a unique problem needing a unique solution. Changing the mindsets or behaviors of your entire workforce is not something that will happen overnight, nor is it something you can force or do all at once. In fact, upsetting the status quo without warning may even create resistance or even resentment, the exact opposite of what you’re looking for!
Solution: More Opportunities to Socialize
One way to build a more interconnected company culture is to simply encourage more and better communication among your employees. If your workers only see each other during meetings and passing each other in the hallway, they’ll likely feel quite ambivalent toward one another. But if you have regular social hours, group meals, or host team-building exercises and wellness challenges, you grant your employees multiple opportunities to come out of their shells and interact with each other. Imagine what a positive and wonderful culture your company could have if everyone was building healthy habits together!
When your company feels like a family, workers will be less inclined to leave. Furthermore, your employees will find it easier to collaborate, which may lead to new and innovative ideas that might not have been conceived otherwise!
Problem: Bad Management
It can be an uncomfortable subject for sure, but if your company’s leadership isn’t up to snuff, the rest of the company may lag as a result. If managers aren’t communicating clearly, things will get lost in the shuffle of day-to-day affairs. Alternatively, if you have “helicopter managers” who hover and prefer to do everything themselves, productivity will also suffer.
Or, perhaps worst of all, there are belligerent or just plain mean managers, who put employees down or make them feel uncomfortable or even unsafe at work. It’s like the old saying goes: People don’t leave their companies, they leave their managers.
Solution: A Worker Wellness-First Attitude
If you operate your business with the guiding philosophy that a happy worker is an effective one, you’ll always be on the right path. Your managers are workers too, and so they should be taken care of like any other worker. Ensuring that they aren’t too overworked or stressed and that their needs are met may be enough to solve any problems your managers are having.
But if that isn’t enough, a more thorough assessment of the situation may be in order. Survey your employees to see what’s really going on and see if you can find some kind of compromise between your managers and the people they oversee. Get as many sides to the story as you can. Perhaps your managers merely need to be re-trained. Or, maybe they’d be better suited for a different department.
Don’t assume you’ll automatically have to terminate a manager just because they’re not popular. A little communication and compromise can go a long way.
How One Wellness App Can Help Reduce High Turnover
We’ve talked about how changing a workplace culture requires small, gradual changes to behavior that happen organically. And we also mentioned that prioritizing these positive behavioral changes can pack a serious productivity punch in your business affairs. It also leads to greater trust among your workers and increased loyalty to the company.
All of these things are great for business. But how can you implement these changes without spending more than you
Luckily, there’s an app that can help with all of that and more: The Fabulous app. And we want to help transform your business into a positive and healthy place with a vibrant and compassionate company culture. We use the latest behavioral science research to develop our award-winning app that teaches users how to make long-lasting changes to their lifestyles.
And our method works. In just 8 weeks of using Fabulous, 80 percent of users successfully developed keystone habits for their morning routine, like eating a healthy breakfast. It’s like having a personal coach in your pocket!
If you’d like to bring Fabulous to your company and see your employees improve their lives while making them more effective at work, visit thefabulous.co/work/ or click here to learn more and sign up today!
