What is employee turnover?
Employee turnover – which is measured as a rate and sometimes called attrition – is the proportion of employees who leave an organisation over a year, expressed as a percentage of total workforce numbers.
It is the voluntary (eg resignations, retirement, not returning from family leave) or involuntary (eg dismissal, death, redundancy) loss of an employee which causes an organisation to recruit new talent and fill the position.
By tracking your employee turnover, you can use the data to help identify where there are trends and to understand what might be causing employees to leave and how you might reduce or prevent it moving forward. It can also help you focus on ways to improve staff retention and the employee experience.
Reasons for high staff turnover
There are many reasons for high staff turnover. According to Indeed, employees may leave their current job if they want greater responsibilities and more of a challenge. They may also leave if they want to live somewhere else – and therefore need a job closer to their new location – or if they want to feel more valued.
Other common reasons for high staff turnover include:
Heavy workload
A heavy workload can lead to employees feeling stressed and experiencing burnout at work. Pressure to meet deadlines might not always be feasible for employees, but if managers fail to understand this, employees may feel overwhelmed and leave for the sake of their mental health.
Poor management
When managers are difficult to work with, employees aren’t likely to feel comfortable at work. Micromanaging creates a culture that inhibits innovative thinking, creativity, and autonomy, which employees can only tolerate for a short time before leaving. If managers are unprepared for their role or if a manager has poor people skills, employees may struggle to work under this leadership and leave the workplace, as mentioned by CIO.
Toxic workplace culture
If employees face bullying at work, they don’t have any friendships or managers don’t clearly communicate with staff, employees won’t be engaged or happy at work. When employees are happy at work and have at least one good friend there, research has found they will be seven times more engaged in their job, and more likely to stay.
No career progression
Employees want opportunities for promotions and career progression at work. If they don’t receive such opportunities and are stuck in the same role for a long period of time, they’re likely to be bored and move to another company where they can excel, learn new skills, and build their resumes.
Lack of flexibility
A lack of flexibility in the working hours and location is a relatively new reason for employee turnover. A 2020 study found that 61% of employees prefer being fully remote. If employers are unable to provide remote working opportunities and require employees to follow strict working hours and location, employees will, instead, join an organisation which offers them this flexibility in today’s world of hybrid working.
Employees mis-sold a role
Our talent manager, Lucy O’Callaghan, says one of the key reasons for high staff turnover in their first year is employees being mis-sold their role.
“If an employee comes to an organisation where they were promised the world before their start date, and then they don’t get what they were promised, they will immediately be disengaged at work and want to leave.”
Poor onboarding experience
Elliott Gill, our people manager, adds that a poor onboarding experience could lead to high turnover.
“If organisations and managers don’t properly introduce employees to the company, including the culture and the values and expectations, there could be misunderstandings and new employees might feel lost and alienated in three to four months’ time.”
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