Suffering From A High Turnover Of Staff? Discover How A Recruitment Agency Can Help

Staff turnover is a natural part of business operations. Yet, a high turnover of staff can cause issues with productivity, company culture, and morale, consequently, impacting a business’s growth potential and bottom line.

With the average UK employee turnover rate increasing by 7.7% in the past 4 years, companies are becoming more aware of the impact of high turnover, and are looking for solutions to prevent it.

For more information to answer the question “What is a high staff turnover?” and to gain an understanding of the business problems caused by a high turnover of staff, and how a recruitment agency can help, read on.

What is a high staff turnover?

A high turnover of staff is the proportion of employees who leave an organisation over a set period. This includes both employees who make the decision to leave a company, and a business exiting an employee in a compliant way.

Some sectors naturally have a higher turnover of staff than others, such as hospitality and retail. This is not overly surprising given both sectors are accessible to low-skilled workers and those looking for temporary jobs or to work part-time alongside studying, caring responsibilities, etc.

Surprisingly, sectors such as technology often experience high staff turnover, due to a predisposition in the sector to secure the skills of temporary workers (freelancers, contractors, etc.), which can give a natural churn of workers. In fact, product and IT business areas had the most employee turnover in 2022.

Why do some businesses have a high turnover of staff?

Whilst higher employee turnover is expected in some companies, there might be key issues that could explain why your company’s turnover is higher than normal.

High staff turnover reasons can include:

• Issues with management
• Feeling overworked
• Lack of opportunities for growth or development
• Low work-life balance
• Competitive offers elsewhere
• The role not reflecting what was initially promised
• Exaggerated perks and benefits
• Feeling unequipped for a role due to insufficient reference checks/recruitment process

If you find that you are constantly experiencing issues with retention and high staff turnover, you should explore what could be causing it. It might be an issue that’s out of your control, or something that you can address and see the positive impact of immediately.

Business problems caused by a high turnover of staff

A high turnover of staff doesn’t just impact the line manager who needs to replace the individuals who have left. It can have serious consequences on the business at large as well.

The impact of your company suffering from high staff turnover could include:

• Loss of company culture. With an ever-revolving door of employees, company culture will naturally deplete. A study of 500 UK businesses found that 63% of companies with a high turnover of staff reported a loss of company culture due to losing staff.
• Employees who remain have an increasingly high workload. While the business tries to find a replacement for a professional, team members often face an increased workload and responsibilities to fill their colleague’s role.
• Domino effect on further resignations. Statistics show that 7 in 10 workers admit that when they see their colleagues quit, it makes them consider resigning as well.
• Time and money spent on recruiting. This cannot be underestimated. According to statistics, it can cost around 34.5% of an employee’s salary to find and hire a new staff member. For instance, if you are looking for a tech professional, recent statistics indicate that it takes on average 49 days to hire a replacement.

You should never underestimate the effects high staff turnover can have on your company. From loss of productivity, company culture, and pauses in projects and business operations, to losing precious hours to recruiting new employees, a high turnover of staff is a real problem that must be tackled.

How to prevent high staff turnover

If you want to curb business problems caused by a high turnover of staff, these ideas below are a great place to start!

Employee wellbeing surveys

An employee survey is often the most accurate way of analysing how you can prevent high staff turnover. By asking your employees if they are experiencing any strains or stresses in the workplace, you might be able to identify potential pain points for multiple individuals. For example, if you have high numbers of employees thinking that they are not being rewarded adequately for their work, or multiple individuals are struggling with a particular process or system, these are issues that you might be able to fix. Make sure that the survey and results are anonymous to build trust and get more accurate results!

Check-ins with employees

Additionally, have a conversation with employees about their workload. A McKinsey survey found that 35% of workers leave their jobs due to unsustainable workloads. You may not be aware until it’s too late that an employee is struggling with their work. Therefore, having an open conversation around managing workloads and creating plans on how to tackle them, can be a helpful way to support stressed employees.

Ensuring managers are supporting their employees

Around 2 in 5 employees resign because of a bad manager. The same study found that 49% of respondents have experienced managers who didn’t listen to them, treated team members differently, or shouted abuse at them. The issue of a bad line manager could cause havoc within your company. Without addressing this issue, a high staff turnover would continue even if you use other preventative measures.

Using a recruitment agency!

A high employee turnover can be a sign of an ineffective recruitment process. Statistics show that 1/3 of workers resign within 6 months and nearly 3/4 of employers admit to realising they hired the wrong candidate after onboarding them. If you find that you struggle to retain employees past the 3-6 month mark, we recommend analysing your recruitment processes.

You may think that recruitment agencies would be hesitant to fix a high staff turnover because they want their clients to continue to recruit. However, any agency worth its salt will want to create a process that helps your company to secure and retain the best talent. If your current recruitment processes aren’t doing the trick, consider working with a proactive recruitment agency to improve your systems.

Ways a recruitment agency can improve high turnover of staff

Ensuring you hire a suitable employee for the role

This might sound obvious. However, a vague job description and an ineffective interview process can lead to employees being hired for jobs they aren’t actually suited to. Additionally, companies who do not reference check new hires to ensure they have the skills they say they do, can lead to higher than normal numbers of staff being exited. A “bad hire” can lead to a host of issues and often ends with the need to find a replacement.

Helping you hire a contractor in the interim

If you are struggling with retention and/or finding your current employees are experiencing a high workload, you might want to consider hiring an interim contractor. This can help to reduce stress to ensure you don’t have additional resignations.

Listening to market advice and knowledge

As a business, you will not have the same market knowledge as a specialist recruitment agency. At VIQU, we communicate with talented professionals on a daily basis. We have the skills and knowledge to assess your competitors and any potential high staff turnover rates, before ascertaining why the individuals you are looking for are leaving their roles and what their main motivations / needs in a new role are. This information could positively impact your hiring process, as it will help you not repeat one of your competitor’s mistakes.

Supporting you throughout the onboarding process

20% of job seekers have said they would quit a job within a month if they had issues with the onboarding / early stages of a new role. Onboarding can be a difficult transitionary period for some new starters and businesses. By working with a recruitment agency like VIQU, your candidate will not be left in the dark until after they start the role. We will learn about how you onboard new starters and communicate this effectively, acting as a constant point of contact in those early days.

Being your voice to market

A good recruitment agency will form a close relationship with you. At VIQU, we will look to understand your company on a deeper level, accurately representing you and your offering to the market. By conducting on-site visits, meeting your talent team and hiring managers, we will gain a better understanding of your culture.  This mitigates the risks of new hires not understanding the role and/or business and quitting shortly after joining.

If are struggling with a high turnover of staff and need help improving your recruitment processes, contact us today for expert and bespoke advice.