Reducing Turnover in any Industry

Reducing Turnover

High turnover, common in retail and restaurants, not only causes the headache of you having to replace staff whenever they quit, but it also costs you money. Research shows it costs you about half of what you spend on an hourly employee’s salary to find a replacement, interview them, manage the paperwork, and train them.

So how can you keep your employees? Here are some tips for reducing turnover.

1. Start by Hiring the Right People

The more attention you put on the hiring process, the more likely you are to find the right fit from the start. If you’re hiring entry-level positions like servers or sales clerks, you can’t rely on an applicant’s job history. Instead, focus on asking questions to find out how reliable and committed a candidate is. Use your gut instinct if you’ve got little else to make your decision on.

2. Focus on Management

Just as important as hiring the right hourly workers is getting the right managers on board. If you’re the manager, brush up on your own management skills. If you’re not the best person for the job, find someone with experience managing a team like yours.

The best managers for fast-paced environments like retail and food and beverage tend to be fast-thinkers, good communicators, and solid decision makers. Having strong leadership can provide reason for your staff to stay with you.

3. Unknot the Scheduling Nightmare

For many businesses, the broken scheduling system is enough to make even the most patient employee quit. If you’re constantly changing a paper schedule, accidentally scheduling people when they can’t work, or fielding calls from your staff to find out when they work, that’s time you can’t put toward growing your business.

Instead, try scheduling software like ScheduleBase. It’ll simplify your employee work schedule, keep your staff happy, and cut down on calls, since you can text or email them their schedules.

4. Provide Benefits

Whether to offer hourly workers health benefits or not is a decision every business has to make. But realize that the allure of having healthcare is enough to encourage many people to commit to a job. You as an employer want to be appealing to new hires and give them reason to stick around.

Consider only offering benefits for those who work 35 hours or more. That way, even the part-timers can aspire to qualify for full-time work and benefits.

5. Don’t Short on Pay

While you’re only required to pay minimum wage for your workers, the buck doesn’t have to stop there. Offering a raise for hitting milestones can be incentive to keep your employees with you for years. By tying increases in pay to what you want them to accomplish, you get more dedicated staff that will be worth paying more for.

6. Be Generous with Praise

Many business owner or managers don’t bother engaging with an employee unless there is a problem. That gives a worker little incentive to stick around. On the other hand, if you dole out compliments for a job well done, you’ll see your employees start to feel like more a part of your company.

While you can’t keep your staff around indefinitely, using these tips will help you prolong their time with you.