4 Ways to Reduce Employee Attrition

If you’re an employer, you’re well aware of the labor market upheaval that’s been taking place for the past two years.

Although unemployment rates have stayed low, it’s never a bad idea to double down on your efforts to reduce employee attrition and keep your strongest performers satisfied.

Yet you can’t make changes if you don’t know why workers leave. According to Pew Research, the top three reasons for seeking a different job include unsatisfactory salary, no room for growth, and not feeling respected.

Of course, there may be other factors at play as well. Your job is to identify them and then use the following strategies to help mitigate turnover.

Ensure new hires are cultural fits.

Want to know how to reduce employee attrition? One method our team uses is to evaluate candidates on skills and how well they’ll weave into the fabric of the company. We believe cultural fit is so important that we include a TTI Success Insights® Talent Insights Report as part of the recruitment journey for staff roles.

The TTI Success Insights® Talent Insights Report reveals an individual’s strengths and weaknesses. Knowing these ahead of time helps us understand more about the applicant. That way, we can objectively determine if an individual is more or less likely to align with our cultural expectations.

Make sure your compensation and benefits are competitive.

Perks like free lunches and workout rooms may be nice, but they’re not enough to wipe out turnover. You need to rethink your compensation package. Giving your benefits a facelift can reduce employee attrition and improve how your workers feel about contributing to your company.

For example, consider expanding your covered insurance offerings to include alternative treatments like acupuncture or even pet insurance. You even could experiment with giving annual health-related stipends or employee-only discounts at certain merchants. Think creatively. If you’re not sure if a benefit makes sense, ask your employees what they would like to see.

Recognize your employees publicly and privately.

You couldn’t accomplish your corporate mission without your employees. Are you rewarding them regularly? The occasional one-off bonus may be nice, but don’t forget about milestone bonuses. Providing a significant bonus or pay bump at the three- or five-year mark encourages people to stick around.

It isn’t necessary for the rewards you provide to be directly backed by cash, though. Publically and privately recognizing team members for stepping up helps them feel valued and supported. Allowing workers to be flexible with their schedules can also be a way to recognize them. Try giving employees more paid time off or an unscheduled four-day weekend “holiday” for hitting quarterly numbers.

That generosity will pay off dividends. What company wouldn’t want its employees to be proud of how they’re treated?

Get serious about work-life balance.

The topic of work-life balance remains important to all employees, not just individuals from the younger generation. Lip service won’t get you far. You need to practice promoting work-life balance across your organization. For instance, you may want to make it clear that workers aren’t supposed to be “checking in” during their vacations by practicing what you preach. Speaking of vacations, you could make them mandatory.

As a leader, you’ll need to follow whatever work-life balance initiatives you create. When you do, you’ll show that you’re serious. You’ll also build more trust among your team members, which should directly impact engagement levels and buy-in.

You can’t reduce employee attrition overnight, but you can make an impact fairly quickly. If what you’re doing now isn’t lessening your turnover, try something different. Keep testing until you’ve found solutions that keep your future leaders happy and engaged.