Employee turnover costs organizations money and time.  When an employee walks away from an organization, productivity is lost and recruitment, interview, and training time are spent.  An organization can expect to spend anywhere from one month’s to one year’s salary to replace an employee, depending on the complexity of the job and the skill level required. Decreasing the turnover rate can be beneficial to organizations by providing better-trained, more experienced employees and a better opportunity for teams to develop.

What Are Some of the Causes of Employee Turnover?

One cause of employee turnover is boredom.  Employees become bored from performing the same job day after day.  One way to prevent employees from becoming bored is to offer opportunities to learn new skills.  If an employee is not allowed to development new skills, the result may be an employee with good skills but a poor attitude.  If employees are not offered opportunities for advancement, many will eventually seek those opportunities elsewhere.

Another cause of employee turnover is dissatisfaction with their own job performance.  Employees want to succeed and feel competent.  If new employees are inadequately trained, they become frustrated and fell embarrassed because they perform poorly on the job.  Their once positive attitudes become poor.  An employee who once had a positive attitude but poor skills becomes an employee with a poor attitude and poor skills.

Conversely, well trained employees are more likely to have a positive attitude to go along with their skills.  They are dependable, interact positively with other employees, satisfy customers, and are competent in their positions.  They maintain a positive attitude toward themselves, their employer, and their future in the organization.

Summary

Employees can remain interested in their jobs and become more valuable to the organization by being presented with new challenges and opportunities for growth.  One of the most important retention tools that an organization can have is good training.

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development