Are you pushing your best employees out the door?

Companies that have lower-than-average employee retention rates may not fully understand their troubling phenomenon. Despite their best efforts, quality employees continue to slip through the cracks, pursuing other job opportunities, even with competing companies. While there are many factors as to why organizations may be pushing their best employees out their front doors, here are two of the most common reasons:

Are you paying them a fair wage?
Compensation is frequently cited as one of the most common reasons why employees leave their positions. Even if the job is stressful or difficult, if employees are paid a fair wage, they are less likely to seek out other opportunities. When it comes to salaries, Sunjan Patel, the VP of marketing for When I Work, wrote for Inc, that employers should find a way to compensate their workers for what they are worth.

While this may be difficult for smaller companies, the price of a raise for a highly qualified employee may be far less risky than wasting time and resources to hire a new employee that may not perform as well. The amount of revenue lost attempting to get this employee up to par could be substantial.

“Managers should regularly benchmark salaries against those of other companies in their region and industry to ensure they are at or above market standards,” Paul McDonald, senior executive director at Robert Half, said in a prepared statement. “While many factors contribute to turnover, competitive pay and benefits can be the difference when it comes to retaining skilled talent.”

Are your managers the problem?
As Travis Bradberry, president at TalentSmart, wrote at LinkedIn, “people don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.” Hiring managers should seriously evaluate if their retention problem centers around one or two bad managers. If employees frequently cite that they are leaving because of poor management or a lack of communication with their boss, it might be wise to bring this problem up to upper management.

In this competitive job market , companies cannot risk losing quality employees due to bad managers. Good employees will leave to find other opportunities, leading to an outflow of workers to the competition that value their input. Don’t lose money and talent to other organizations investigate whether or not management is causing the retention problem.

“Smart companies make certain their managers know how to balance being professional with being human,” Bradberry explained. “These are the bosses who celebrate an employee’s success, empathize with those going through hard times, and challenge people, even when it hurts. Bosses who fail to really care will always have high turnover rates.”

Once hiring managers have addressed these two retention problems, they should integrate pre-employment testing into their process to make smarter hiring decisions. Though companies may have good management, if there are no talented lower-level employees, an office cannot function properly. Contact EmployTest today to learn more about our tests and services.