Staff Retention

The business impact of staff turnover

When staff turnover moves from a healthy amount of churn to high levels of loss, its impact reaches to the very heart of organisational success.  Not only does it directly affect profit and productivity, with the expense of hiring and training new staff, but there is also a subsequent loss of corporate knowledge.  What’s more, it can negatively impact morale and customer service.

In Australia, Unisys has estimated staff turnover to cost business $100 billion a year.  And staff turnover in the UK shows no signs of abating, with a rate of 17.3% according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)*. In the same survey, 74% of respondents reported a negative effect to business performance as a result of departing employees.  The consequences are clear and organisations globally must step up efforts to develop and retain existing staff.

You can read on to find out more on the actions you can take to improve staff retention or;

Contact us now to find out how SHL can help you improve staff retention

Taking action to reduce staff turnover

According to the U.S. Department of Labour, 64% of Americans who leave their jobs do so because they don't feel appreciated.  In the UK, Investors in People have found nearly one in three people to be de-motivated in their current job.  Addressing what motivates people and looking into the prevailing culture of a company is key to stronger staff retention and lower turnover.

There are some important first steps to consider when tackling the problem of high staff turnover:

• Conduct exit interviews to find out why employees are departing
• Understand what motivates individuals in your organisation
• Develop staff retention strategies that support resource and business goals.

Equally, the selection and induction process needs to be reviewed.  According to the CIPD a high proportion of new starters leave an organisation within the first six months.  To reduce this trend it is critical that there is a good fit between the person coming into the organisation and the role that they are undertaking.

Read how SHL helped Neiman Marcus reduce staff turnover

How careful selection can improve staff retention

Turnover is typically higher in lower paid private sector services groups; call centres for example have suffered from high staff turnover.  Delving deeper into this issue, SHL conducted research into call centre staff turnover and discovered a 50% improvement in staff retention through systematic scientific selection and job matching. 

A bad hire will not only impact on individual performance, but the morale of the whole team.  Bringing in the right people first time is therefore key to good staff retention. 

SHL provides consultancy services to target a clear reduction in staff turnover, contact us for more information

SHL products that can help improve staff retention

SHL has a range of proven assessment products to help reduce and prevent staff turnover.  Our assessment products identify candidates with the best mix of competencies for each job and can develop custom tenure prediction questionnaires that assess the likelihood of a candidate to stay in a job.

High levels of staff turnover were a costly problem for one international aviation services company.  As a result of using SHL’s assessment tools, the company has been able to successfully employ the most suitable candidate for each role and increase its retention rates.

You will find more information about our assessment products in the SHL Products section of this site.

Motivation and Culture are crucial to strong staff retention

Staff motivation is as vital to success as any skill or personal attribute and therefore plays a key role in staff retention.

Yet, whilst this is well recognised, organisations are less certain on how to identify key motivators.  SHL’s Motivation Questionnaire has been designed to measure an employee’s motivation and help managers understand the situations that can increase or reduce it.  As a result organisations can unlock each individual’s full potential and direct their energies more constructively.

Its benefits are numerous including:

• Increased work satisfaction levels
• Reduced staff turnover
• Prevention of talent loss to key competitors
• Maximum staff performance.

Discover how to improve staff retention with SHL’s Motivation Questionnaire

Another critical factor to increasing staff retention lies in understanding the prevailing culture of an organisation, including its dominant system of beliefs and practices.  Being able to identify different cultural perceptions of the organisation across staff groups, business units, time and location is particularly crucial when embarking on organisational change to reduce staff turnover and increase staff retention.

Find out more about SHL’s methods of assessing and measuring Corporate Culture

*CIPD: Recruitment, Retention and Turnover survey 2008