One of the most common problems in a company is staff turnover. Incurring costs of hiring, training and liquidating employees is extremely costly for any employer, and for SMEs it involves jeopardizing the existence of the business.
It is not a factor that can be foreseen in the preparation of a business plan, since in reality there are many external causes for which an employee decides to leave his job, however, it is the internal causes that the employer must know in order to avoid desertion of your human resource, since they are factors that being within your company can be controlled and even prevented; here we will talk about the most general.
When dealing with the issue of employee retention, we must work under the assumption that the employee is already hired, that is, there has already been a process of staff search, hiring, and training.
Therefore, in order to find solutions and prepare preventions, first we analyze the internal causes of the company for which we have the problem of staff turnover:
1. The salary received is not proportional to the job. Most people who leave a job do so because they do not consider receiving adequate remuneration for the work they are required to do.
It is true that it depends on the job and who does it, but it is also true that eight hours of sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms is much more exhausting than eight hours of sitting at a desk answering phones.
There are jobs that risk your life and health that are supposed to be the best paid; however, sometimes we pay for the work and other times we pay for the knowledge and experience.
In Mexico, it is not considered discrimination to request information about the applicant for a vacancy, so, before offering a job, the profile of the employee who can carry out the activities is defined exactly.
Decide who you want to run your business: a student (keep in mind that they will only be able to work part-time), someone with full availability, someone who is responsible (generally, married people with children tend to consider themselves more responsible than single women, for the commitment they have to maintain a family)…, if you require that they have previous experience, and all kinds of information that can help you identify if the person is the right one to work in your business, if they can feel comfortable with the salary you are seeking pay, and look very carefully at who you hire, because in your employees you will be depositing the most valuable thing that a business can have, which is prestige.
If you can't afford a salary worth having the job, then think of other extra alternatives that make the job in question more desirable. You can pay commissions for a certain number of sales. You can pay a bonus for punctuality to the most responsible employees, thus you will encourage the rest to be careful with those details, perhaps another bonus per employee of the month is another stimulus, without entering the fixed salary.
If you can't pay sales commissions (which is generally the most attractive to a true salesperson), then make bonuses in kind: Give your employee a garment every time she has a good week of sales, for example. Offer them a benefit such as food stamps, gasoline, Social Security, vacations, Christmas bonuses or a savings bank in which you deduct a certain percentage of their salary each time you pay them, which at the end of the year you will deliver along with an extra that you put
You have to take care of the employees you have in the business, because they will be the image and voice of the company, the link between you and the client, remember this when applying for a job interview.
2. Working conditions not suitable for well-being. Maybe you pay your employees well, but if the work they do has certain risks that endanger their health or their person, rest assured that they will not return the next day. Analyze if a situation of this type is experienced in your business, because if it is not detected, it can cost you dearly in the long run.
When I was in college, a friend went to work in a well-known restaurant that didn't wait long for waitresses; I realized this because every week I could read the vacancies they offered in the newspaper. The ad said "$ 100 mn per day plus tips" and, although that was a very good salary for a student, the same day my friend started working she decided never to return, not even as a client.
The reason: the clients of the place were extremely special. It turns out that most of them were employees of a factory that was on the next street, many of them were quite disrespectful to the waitresses, some were yelling and complaining to the manager, screaming “this new girl is not as fast as the previous ”and things like that.
Apparently, all this was in a joking tone, since they were supposed to be frequent customers of the business and the owner knew each one by name and seemed to be a friend to everyone. However, this situation was not perceived in the same way by the employees, who felt harassed and humiliated by those clients. The business owner was in a dilemma because he had to choose between keeping customers or keeping employees.
In the end, the solution was inevitably talking to his “clients” and asking them for more respect towards their waitresses because he had grown tired of training people and losing them, searching again, training them and watching them leave, in addition to the fact that this was becoming more expensive.
3. Work activities are not ideal for the employee. Maybe your employee needs the job, but if the activities you want her to do are not suitable for her, rest assured that she will leave the job as soon as she finds something that she likes more.
In your case, dear business owner of a boutique who wrote to me to ask what to do about the swallow staff problem, I can tell you that your case may be mainly due to this cause. If the girls who are looking to take care of the business do not have vendors' wood, rest assured that they will be bored all the hours they spend at work.
What can you do? There are many things, start by looking for the right person to be in that job. Perhaps a student who, while not selling clothes, can use the time to do her homework is a good option, especially if the pay you offer cannot compete with a cashier job at a self-service store.
4. Lack of a synergistic work environment. If you were an employee before being an entrepreneur, you will know what I am talking about. You will remember the times when you wanted to run away from your job and never hear from him or your boss again: the unpleasant atmosphere that is experienced in certain workplaces prevents good employees from developing and adapting to work.
Most of the time we spend away from home we are at work, which is why I say this should be like our second home. The business owner, employer or boss must ensure that the environment in the workplace is healthy, healthy, harmonious, pleasant and peaceful.
In my city there is a famous children's entertainment center in which they only hire students from 16 to 19 years old. My sister worked for a time there while studying high school, and even though she earned no more than the minimum (48.67 pesos a day), she never stopped going to work, including holidays.
On one occasion I proposed that she stay home and that I would pay her that day's salary, to which she replied that it was not because of the money that she was working there, but because she was having a really good time in the company of his companions.
In other words, she enjoyed going to work, and I think that was reflected in her work because the day she resigned to go to college, her boss offered to pay her double the salary and give her a promotion to another position of higher rank., as long as he stayed working. She was a good employee thanks to the synergy of her workplace.
Think about it: all employees must align their activities towards a goal in order to be on the same channel and make working hours truly effective and increase productivity, because only then can the desired result be achieved.
5. Absence of promotions and recognition of merit. Who doesn't like to be recognized when they do something good? The difference between a motivated employee and one who complains about his job is recognition of his work.
It is not necessary to be ungrateful, we know the work that the employee of our business does, but rarely we recognize it; It is not just about making bonuses in cash or in kind, we can also make some acknowledgment in writing that the employee can take home; make an honor roll in the employee rest area where the congratulations are extended so that other employees can share it.
Remember, dear businessman, that the human resource is the most valuable that the company has, it is the only one that has real added value and therefore requires proper management in terms of knowledge, talent and training. How do you get your employees to stay with you? Easy: Become the boss you always wanted to have! Until next time!
