This is a contributor’s blogpost …

 

Staff turnover is a huge problem for businesses. Not only does the business have to cope with the disruption caused by a member of staff leaving, but turnover is also an expensive business. Hiring new staff is costly. Combine this with the cost of managing the paperwork for a departing employee and you have the perfect storm. Wherever possible, a business needs to ensure that its staff turnover is as low as it can possibly be.

Some industries manage this well — employees are hired, and they happily stay for years on end. Other industries… well, they’re not doing so well. Below, we’ll investigate the industries with the worst rates of staff turnover, why this happens, and what you can do about it if your business operates in one of these areas.

 

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#1 Retail

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason retail is so prone to high staff turnover. One issue is the nature of the job. It’s fairly low-skilled, which means many people use retail as a “starter” career before moving into something they really want to do. Retail is also tough; as http://notalwaysright.com/ shows, customers can be unpleasant, it often involves working holidays and weekends, and the work can be thankless.

As a result, retail has some of the worst staff turnover rates of any industry. All of the above combine to mean that retail workers are more comfortable leaving if they are unhappy, and retail positions can be difficult to fill.

 

What can you do about it?

If your retail business is struggling with high levels of staff turnover, you need to know why. Talk to employees who wish to leave and ascertain their reasons. If they are leaving to improve their own life, change career, or due to personal circumstances, that’s fine. What you don’t want to hear are complaints about the schedule or the lack of support from management. If these issues are raised, then they need to be addressed.

You should also ensure that your budget is always prepared for the fact that you work in an industry with incredibly high staff turnover. You may find that holding regular recruitment drives on a constant basis is actually more cost-effective than just running ads when a position is available.

 

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#2 Warehouse work

Warehouse work suffers from similar issues with staff retention as retail. Again, it’s relatively low-skilled, and there’s usually plenty of opportunities around, so a worker who isn’t happy can find another job relatively quickly.

Warehouse work is also physically demanding, in a way that many jobs no longer are in the modern age. Warehouse workers can easily walk for ten miles per day. This means that workers have to be physically fit, which rules out an entire section of society for this kind of work. Warehouse work also has a tendency to be rather anti-social. The hours are long and working through the night is not uncommon.

 

What can you do about it?

Again, talk to your employees who leave. You shouldn’t worry if they are moving for personal reasons, of course, but there are a few things that should alarm you. The main issue you don’t want to hear is employees are leaving due to safety concerns. A huge amount of warehouse work is done at height, and if employees don’t have access to secure equipment such as the lifts available from www.hr2fl.com/scissorLifts/, then they will soon look elsewhere. If former employees raise any kind of safety concerns, you need to address these issues immediately.

 

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#3 Hospitality

Again, hospitality is another industry that suffers from the issue of not being seen as a permanent career. This, coupled with low wages, leads to huge issues with staff turnover for bars, restaurants and hotels.

 

What can you do about it?

The most obvious improvement you can make is to implement a European-style model, where employees don’t need to rely on tips to make a decent wage. Instead, set a minimum wage and allow for tips. This will incentivize good work and make employees want to remain in such a lucrative job.

 

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#4 Customer Service

Customer service is a thankless job. Employees will spend their days dealing with irate customers and being blamed for problems that are not of their making. This, combined with often-unpleasant shift patterns, means that this industry will always have a tendency towards high staff turnover.

As well as the issues with the job itself, customer service — like retail — is often seen as a “bridge” career. It’s something that people do while they continue their education or develop their skills. Customer service does not have a huge amount of career advancement available, which means that workers are often just not as committed as you might hope.

 

What can you do about it?

The vast majority of customer service employees will tell you they leave because of the abuse they have to deal with. It’s worth asking for any other reasons, of course, but you will primarily hear issues with customers as a primary reason why people choose to move on.

While you can’t control the way that members of the public behave towards your staff, you can control what happens next. If you truly want to minimize staff turnover in your customer service department, then you need to empower your customer service reps. Insist on a politeness test that customers must meet; if they begin to shout or use expletives, the customer service rep has the right to end the call. This may annoy customers further but, eventually, they will calm down and seek to resolve the issue in a more pleasant manner. No employee should have to take endless abuse. This will kill their enthusiasm for the job, so you have to allow reps to end calls if the situation is escalating.

 

In conclusion

The four industries above are known for the issues they experience with high staff turnover rate. If your business operates in these industries, it is well worth examining the potential solutions that can ease your staff turnover woes. Retaining staff is better for you, your business, and ultimately the profits that you stand to make.