During the recent tight job market, employers were calling the shots, but in 2004, turnover exceeded 20% for the better part of the year. In addition to some of the obvious problems created by high turnover – reduction in productivity and quality, increased costs for training and recruitment, decrease in morale – a very significant problem we see with high turnover is the effect on safety. Newer employees are at higher risk or injuries on the job. They don’t know the job as well, they don’t know the dangers, and they are generally eager to please a new boss.
A recent article in Business Week discusses ways to motivate and retain your star performers. George’s Employment Blawg has more tips and links to other news stories on turnover and the steps that several large employers are taking to retain staff. There are excellent suggestions for improving retention in both sources. We particularly liked these tips from Cracker Barrel:
“Regardless of the task, the common thread for employees is a need to be valued and to be part of a larger whole.” “Shared expectations and how it feels to be part of the culture and how we support each other is a huge part of creating a sense of belonging and sense of affiliation.”
Related:
Estimate your company

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005 at 10:02 am and is filed under Best Practices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.