“Employee Turnover”
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
The supervisor who is continually pessimistic and brow-beating, and is only heard from when an employee is caught making a mistake, will have a team who simply do the bare minimum required and hope to survive day to day. And worse, quality employees will look for any good opportunity to take their talents elsewhere.
Employee turnover occasionally results from a growth in the employee’s abilities beyond the present organization’s needs and opportunities. In this case, all parties usually recognize the need for the employee to move onward and upward; this is a happy ending. However, turnover of the chronic nature is the result of the intersection of a poor work environment in the employees’ present position and quality work opportunities in the broader marketplace. If the employee’s present environment—the combination of compensation, benefits, team camaraderie, and satisfaction—is generally positive, the greater the outside opportunity will need to be to attract good employees away.
Conversely, the poorer the present work experience is, for whatever reason, the more eager employees will be to leave for a better job—and it won’t take much of an opportunity to steal away good employees.
That universal axiom provides both a warning and an opportunity. The warning is obvious and clear: take care of your good employees or someone else will. The opportunity is more subtle. Your employees’ general work satisfaction is always about more than money. In fact, if someone complains about money, there are usually deeper issues involved, such as stress at home or at work, perceived lack of respect, etc. Additional compensation may mask these issues for a very short time, but they will undoubtedly return.
Stay in touch with all your direct reports and monitor the following:
- Workplace conflict
- Stress at home
- Employee’s perceived respect by team mates and supervisors
- Employee ongoing growth and future aspirations
- Fatigue
- Boredom
Early intervention by shifting duties, conflict resolution, or encouraging time off may short-circuit a larger emotional and psychological issue which may, in turn, head off a much more challenging workplace situation which most certainly would otherwise result in an unnecessary loss of good people.