How to Manage Staff Turnover

Keeping your workforce stable is a challenge for any manager in these times. Here's how to encourage your employees to stick around.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Realize money isn't everything. Although financial incentives will encourage employees to stay over the short term, over the long term they need opportunities for growth.

2. Offer a solid foundation for growth at your company. Let employees know specifically where they can go in the company and what they need to do to get there. Don't be ambiguous.

3. Praise employees when they've done a good job.

4. Create a good working relationship with your employees. People are less likely to leave if they feel they're a valued member of a team.

5. Provide or pay for training. Although workers no longer expect lifetime employment at one company, they do want to be employable throughout their lives, and this means keeping their skills current.

6. Make certain your company has career plans for various departments for those who want to move upward in the company. Even McDonald's, which thrives on high turnover, has career plans for employees who want to stay with the company.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember, training a new employee can be much more expensive than paying more to keep an established one. Don't be pennywise and pound-foolish.
• Yes, some employees may have you pay for training and then run when the first big offer comes along; nonetheless, over the long run, you'll have a better and more loyal staff if people feel they're not losing ground by staying with you.

on 3/23/2006 Never ask anyone to do anything you do not at least have a detailed protocol for, or at best, have a working knowledge of. If you do not know how it is supposed to be done, how can you support your staff and help them to do it right?