8 Key Ways to Reduce Employee Turnover and Achieve Hypergrowth

High employee turnover can stunt growth at any company. Between recruitment, onboarding, and training, replacing employees is expensive and time consuming.

It’s hard to get your workforce into a groove when team members are constantly coming and going. And without consistency, how can you optimize your processes enough to boost productivity and gain a competitive advantage?

Here are 8 key ways to break the high turnover cycle so your organization can achieve hypergrowth: 

Hire the right people

When you need positions filled, it might be tempting to focus on previous job experience and applicable hard skills. While these are both important aspects to consider during the hiring process, it’s also imperative to think about culture fit.

In addition to evaluating how well a candidate’s skills match the position at hand, also think about how well they fit company culture. Ask behavioral interview questions to get an understanding of how they would respond to typical situations that take place in your organization. Be as transparent as possible when telling candidates about the workplace culture and office environment. This will help candidates who aren’t the right fit weed themselves out.

If you hire people without taking culture fit into account, you’ll end up with less engaged and less satisfied employees — and higher turnover. Don’t waste time and resources by onboarding someone who will quit in a month because they hate the company culture.

Identify reasons why employees stay

Exit interviews are a great way to gather feedback about your organization and determine why employees leave. But you’ll miss out on valuable information if you only collect data from employees who are already leaving.

Rather than only focusing solely on exit interviews, consider stay interviews to explore why current employees are happy at work. Additionally, conduct onboarding surveys to maintain awareness of how new employees are feeling about their position and the organization as a whole. This ensures that you can address potential issues before they become dealbreakers that push employees out the door. 

Set clear expectations

“I didn’t sign up for this” is the last thing you want to hear from an employee. 

When an employee goes into their new position and finds that it’s nothing like they were expecting, that can cause second thoughts and frustration. Even long-standing employees can become disengaged and dissatisfied without a solid understanding of what they need to do in order to be successful in their role. In fact, unclear expectations are a top source of employee stress.

It’s vital to be transparent from the get-go about what the job actually entails. Make it clear how success is defined in the position, describe the day-to-day tasks they’ll be completing, and delineate any other expectations so there are no surprises.

Be honest and transparent

Transparency has to go beyond the hiring and onboarding process. 

Any organizational changes that take place (change in leadership, mergers, acquisitions, structural changes, operational changes, etc.) should be communicated clearly with employees as soon as possible. This builds trust among your workforce and allows for smoother adjustments during times of transition and change.

Foster a community

According to the TINYpulse 2015 Employee Engagement & Organizational Culture Report, the #1 thing that employees love about their workplace is their peers and colleagues. A sense of camaraderie and belonging go a long way toward keeping up morale.

Digital marketing firm Wpromote, for example, uses TINYpulse to cultivate their company culture and foster a sense of community, creating “a fun, supportive, interactive environment where collaboration thrives, creativity is encouraged, and the best ideas prevail.” 

Show your appreciation

A majority of employees (66%) say they would quit their job if they felt unappreciated. To keep employees engaged and satisfied, you have to show them that their contributions to the organization are valued. 

Expressing praise is an easy way to make employees feel appreciated and boost their confidence (and give them an incentive to continue performing well). TINYpulse’s Cheers for Peers is a great tool for encouraging praise and appreciation within your organization.

Allow flexible work schedules

Strict 9-to-5 schedules are becoming less and less common as employers discover the benefits of allowing flexible work schedules. Employees with flexible schedules tend to get sick less often, experience less burnout, and are happier with their jobs.

Opportunities to work from home and adjust work hours (e.g. starting one hour early and leaving one hour early) can also alleviate personal life stress for employees, especially when things like childcare, doctor appointments, and car repairs come up.

If work from home days or flex hours don’t work for your company, things like flexible lunch schedules can also help provide employees with a little more freedom.

Offer growth opportunities and career development

Lack of career advancement opportunities within an organization can result in high turnover — employees feel that in order to move forward, they have to move to a new company. A recent Glassdoor study found that the longer employees stay in the same job without a title change, the more likely they are to leave for another company when they finally do change titles.

To feel satisfied at work, many employees need to have tangible, feasible goals to reach. A clear path for career advancement can act as a powerful incentive for employees to stay with your organization.

Even if the structure of your organization doesn’t allow for many title changes, you can still create opportunities for continued growth, learning, and skills development. This is particularly important for millennials — 59% say that opportunities to learn and grow are extremely important to them when applying for a job.

These 8 turnover reduction strategies demonstrate that happy, engaged employees are the key to retention. Reduced turnover saves time and money, allowing you to focus on optimizing your processes and growing your organization. 

TINYpulse helped software consulting company DevFacto achieve a 97% employee retention rate. Read the case study.