Employee Turnover At Employers Gain And Lose Their Employees

High employee turnover, where workers frequently leave and must be replaced, leads to increased spending on recruitment and training and can indicate management problems. Employees often have good reasons for moving on but if too many are leaving an organisation, can be very disruptive.

When an employee leaves the company of his or her own volition, it is called voluntary turnover. In this essay, I will discuss why voluntary turnover is a problem for many organisations and how to retain employees.

High employee turnover has monetary costs. Though estimates vary, most experts agree that turnover costs, when all things are considered, equals at least 25% of a leaving employee’s annual wages (Silva & Toledo, 2009). For example, for an employee making $25,000 per year, the total turnover costs associated with replacing that employee would be at least $6,250. This includes cost of prescreening measures such as drug tests, background checks, application reviews, interviews, pre-employment training and other recruitment costs (Dolfin, 2006). It also includes implicit cost associated with on the job training and the productivity loss experienced by other employees that must help acclimate new employees to their environment

Some feel their supervisors don’t understand them and some are just on the way to the next highest paying job. No matter the reason, the loss of staff affects the quality and quantity of service we provide to our clients. Turnover increases critical incidents with our clients by putting them in harm’s way by utilizing staff they may not have been properly trained to deal with the client and their particular needs (Wenger, 2011). Furthermore, turnover causes severe staffing shortages and increases overtime costs for additional staff to cover those vacated positions (Wenger, 2011). As an HR professional, I wanted to focus this research on finding the answers to the questions I had around turnover. My research will include the concepts of recruitment and selection in acquiring human resources as well as compensation and training and development and will be used in formulating the strategic recruitment plan.

Retaining employees is one way the turnover rate can decrease, Branham (2000), focuses on retaining valuable employees by incorporating four key elements. The first key elements is, “be a company that people want to work for”. There are many companies that have been labeled as, “employers of choice”. These employers all have something in common, which is how they value their employers (Branham, 2000). They treat their employees with respect and like family. With being an “employer of choice,” people are the most valuable asset; not just customers but employees too. Many companies go above and beyond for their customers, but not for their employees, yet they wonder why they are losing valuable talent.

Having a high employee turnover rate can cost the company more than just people. There are many “costs” physical and opportunity that are included into high employee turnover. The physical costs of high employee turnover is training the new employee, interview expenses, and advertising costs. These are general costs, but when

There are two types of turnover, voluntary turnover happens when the employee makes the decision to leave and involuntary turnover is when employees has no choice in their termination (Schmitz, 2012). Every month or sooner managers experience some of their exceedingly qualified employees leave the company. After realizing that their company is becoming less profitable is when they begin to wonder why and brainstorm on ways to retain them. In Information Technology, “the cost of recruiting new staff is high and the loss of continuity when staff leave can also be very expensive” (Bott, 2005, p. 111). In IT, human resources strive to maintain their highly skilled employees while employees’

Nevertheless, these methods cannot predict employees’ turnover. Morrell et al. (2001) discuss about two key concepts: voluntary and involuntary turnover. Voluntary turnover relates to the employee’s decision to leave such as illness or personal reasons. While, involuntary turnover relates to company related problems such as the need to cut costs or to downsize. Even if organisations develop means to identify the characteristics that influence turnover, neither of these two types can be successfully foreseen during the recruitment process. As a result, employers need to secure long term employment since a labour turnover will have a high cost both in terms of recruitment and selection and in terms of training sessions meant to enhance the employees’ soft skills. (Beardwell and Claydon, 2010).

It is difficult to fully calculate the cost of turnover; however, industry experts often quote 25% of the average employee salary as a conservative estimate (Nobscot Corporation, 2016). The direct costs of employee turnover include advertising, recruiting, hiring and training costs. Although there is a significant financial impact to an organization the cost is based only on replacing an individual employee. Turnover can also have indirect costs, such as workplace productivity loss, workflow efficiency and the loss of organizational knowledge. When an employee leaves, they take with them valuable knowledge about the organization, the customers, the current projects and past history, sometimes taking this information to competitors (Nobscot Corporation, 2016). Not retaining the adequate numbers of employees could also lead to over-burdening employees, low employee morale, poor customer service, and more safety concerns (Jones & Gates,

As employee turnover increase, it is the role of the HR manager to keep that from happening, by being more engaged with employers, Richard P. Finnegan introduced this in his book ‘The Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad, Breakthrough Ideas for Keeping Your Best Workers’. Mr. Finnegan spoke of the ten principles he believe will decrease the employee turnover, in addition to improving HR and employer’s relationship, he conducted research through surveys, and through experience.

Employee turnover is the difference in the rate of employees leaving a company and new employees filling up their positions. Nowadays, it is becoming a major problem among most of the companies, especially in low paying jobs or jobs where workers are not proactive about their job. There are many aspects that play a significant role in the employee turnover rate of a particular company. Such aspects can stem from both the company as well as the employees. The employers generally give more importance to the employee turnover rate, as it is a very expensive aspect of the business.

Workforce turnover is a complex and important issue amongst today's organisations. It is perhaps one of the most often cited cause of increased cost and decreased productivity. No wonder people management has become an important frontier to extract and create more value from company assets. On comprehending the articles, it has become evident that organisations have moved beyond the traditional approach of only investing in core business activities, to invest in employee retention strategies. Many organisations, for example St. George Bank

Employee turnover can occur for numerous reasons. Employers need to listen to employees’ needs and implement retention strategies to make employees feel valued and involved in order to keep them. The cost of retention is far less more brutal than the cost of employee turnover. Employee turnover has many aspects that will contribute to becoming a lot more money that a company is losing. By recognizing the reason for employee turnover, the cost associated and implementing retention strategies an organization can become a place where everyone will want to work.

Employee turnover is an issue that at some point affects all businesses. Employees choose to leave organizations both voluntarily and involuntarily dependent on a wide multitude of circumstances (Noe et al., 2011). Regardless of the reason for separation, employee turnover comprises of both direct and indirect costs that financially impact an organization. There are four basic cost categories related to employee turnover: separation, replacement, training, and productivity (Source?). Separation costs are expenses that are caused when employees or organizations choose to end their partnership and include expenses such as unemployment compensation, legal settlements, extended benefits, and the cost of conducting exit interviews. Replacement costs are the expenses required to refill the vacant position. These costs include items such as position advertisement, recruitment costs, costs of screening and interviewing employees, and any hiring or signing bonuses expensed to fill the open role. Training costs include the time and effort needed from trainers, supervisors, and co-workers to educate employees. Lastly productivity costs include lower productivity of employees prior to leaving the organization, reduced productivity and increased labor expenses of remaining employees to cover the open positions, morale and reputation issues created by employee losses, increased error rates of new employees, and lost knowledge and efficiency of experienced employee that leave

“Turnover refers to the number of employees who leave a company in a particular period of time.” (Westover 2014 16) Throughout my entire college career I have tried to focus and narrow down on the topic of employee turnover rates. I have researched it, I have studied it, and I have really gone and try to analyze every possibility of cause and effect when it comes to employee turnover rates. There are many aspects to an HRM role within a company and one of those is being able to look at employee turnover rates due to the impact that it can have on a company’s cost. I have chosen to interview two HR managers, Ben Wood with Graphtec INC. and Bill Schlenker with Pierce Accounting, about employee turnover rates for this assignment to have a deeper look into their thoughts, goals, and ideas about employee turnover rates.