5 Ways to Reduce Employee Turnover

In an ideal world, every employee would be productive and happy, would recruit more productive and happy employees for you, and would never want to leave their jobs. Unfortunately, reality is not so ideal. Employee turnover in the hospitality industry is an enormous problem; a 2015 Deloitte study found that turnover can be as high as 31% for restaurant and hotel employees. That's a staggering figure!

High turnover is expensive for organisations in more ways than just the obvious cost of having to hire and train new employees. Employees joining and leaving the company can have a negative, long-lasting impact on employee morale, workplace culture and productivity, which just contributes to future turnover, creating and perpetuating a vicious cycle.

Fortunately, there are ways to address high turnover rates. Here are five of them:

First impressions

Recognise that the first days and weeks after a new employee joins your organisation are critical. Everyone has heard the adage "you never get a second chance to make a first impression," and that saying is very applicable to the employment relationship. Make sure your new hires feel welcomed and appreciated, and make sure they know where to turn for help.

Policies.

Have clear, understandable policies and procedures, and train all employees on them. Technology tools such as Intuto can help with new employee on-boarding, sales and product training, and required compliance training such as workplace safety, harassment policies. Documenting your expectations and rules for employee conduct, and using technology to deliver and record receipt can help avoid later confusion about job requirements and expectations for behaviour.

Consistency

Training needs to be consistent in order to be effective. If there is no formal training program, or if different people train new employees with completely different focuses, your new hires will be left feeling confused at best, and most likely will not feel prepared to do their jobs effectively. Leveraging technology for your new employee training combats that by ensuring that your employees will learn what you want them to learn, and everyone at the same level will receive the same content so they are prepared to hit the ground running.

Safety

Make your employees feel safe and comfortable at work. This means employees need to be trained on using the specific tools needed to do their jobs, but it also means employees need to be comfortable knowing that you don't tolerate any type of harassment or bullying in the workplace. Make sure your company training content, communications and culture all reflect the values you expect your employees to uphold. When employees know what to expect, and know that you'll "have their backs", they'll be more productive, creating a win-win situation for everyone.

Communication

This one cannot be stressed enough. Communicate, communicate, and communicate again, in as many ways as make sense for your business. Consistent, meaningful internal communications between employers and employees can really drive engagement and productivity, because employees will have a deeper understanding of the reasons behind newly implemented or changed policies.

Of course, even with the best first impressions and the most effective and consistent employee policies and procedures, training and communications, getting to zero percent turnover just isn't realistic. However, by making some deliberate changes and leveraging technology to help ensure consistency and clarity, you can create a situation where your employees feel more engaged. That, in turn, will make them more productive, and they'll be more likely to recruit like-minded friends to work for you too. Instead of facing a revolving door of employees leaving, you can create a snowball effect of positivity, making employees eager to work for you and making customers eager to return.

To learn more, and to find out how Intuto can help with employee on-boarding, training, workplace culture and product knowledge, contact us today.