7 Best Ways to Reduce Employee Attrition

What is employee attrition?
The true employee attrition meaning: When an employee leaves the company by way of voluntary resignation due to professional or personal reasons, and the vacant position cannot be replaced immediately, it is termed as employee attrition.

Various reasons contribute to attrition, such as lack of growth opportunities, better career opportunity from competitors, low salary, no salary hike, lack of employee benefits, unfavourable working conditions, rude managers, etc. Employee attrition in HR is a big problem.

A higher employee attrition rate is a massive warning sign for any company. It means that the organization should take the necessary measures to ensure its existing employees are happy and satisfied with the organization so that they do not leave them for another company. Let us, therefore, check the ways in which employers can motivate their employees to stay with the company and, in the process, reduce their employee attrition rate.

Offer an equivalent salary
For the employer, it may not be very easy, especially considering the pandemic and its effect on business, to offer handsome pay packages to their employees. But still, you should make it a point to offer equivalent salaries to your employees as per the market average. Offering a fair and equal compensation may not single-handedly guarantee employee loyalty, but offering salaries lower than the market will surely result in voluntary resignation, leading to staff attrition.

According to the latest research by a leading human resources firm, if the pay packages offered by the company to its employees is 10 % lower than for similar jobs and profiles across different industries, then the likelihood of the employee seeking voluntary resignation increases manifold.

Therefore, to prevent your employee from leaving the company, conduct regular salary reviews for each of the job positions that you have on offer, including entry-level, experienced and supervisor-level roles. Compare your pay packages with reliable statistics and averages. If you find substantial differences then the company should focus on making necessary amendments and adjustments in their compensation plans to ensure the employees stay with the organization, thus, lowering your employee attrition.

Train your supervisors and managers
It is a known fact that employees do not leave the company, they leave their bosses. According to a recent survey by a recruiting firm, approximately 90% of professionals resign from the company due to rude and unapologetic bosses.

A healthy manager-employee relationship is vital for the overall job satisfaction as well as workforce retention. Therefore, ensure that your managers aren’t driving their teams to a point of resignation. Instead, they need to show exemplary leadership by allowing equal opportunities for their team members to learn and grow. For this, it is pertinent to provide the required training to your managers so that they develop good supervisory and employee management skills.

After all, a good manager will always help an employee grow within the organization rather than instigate them to leave the organization, however unknowingly. And focusing on your managers would ultimately help you bring down your attrition numbers.

Provide proper benefits to the employees
Employee benefits may form the secondary component of employee compensation but still play an important role in employee retention. Employees need better benefits to ensure that they are being looked after by the company for the services they provide. It makes them feel that the organization they work for cares for them and does not just pay their salaries.

Employee benefits such as leaves, heath and life insurances and other additional benefits are essential to motivate the employee to stay on in your company. That’s why, the benefits offered to employees cannot be lesser or lower than those offered by your competitors, as this may cause your employees to leave you and join your competition.

Clearly define job roles and responsibilities
Create a proper recruitment strategy and precisely define the roles and responsibilities of each job role. Create a detailed job description for the job position. This will not just help you recruit the right employees, but also accurately inform them about their exact job roles and what is expected from them daily at work. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities bring stability to the daily operations and management-employee relations. It helps the company to focus on the core competencies of the employees, which helps to boost employee engagement.

On the other hand, unclear or vague job descriptions make the vacant position look uninteresting and uncertain. The employee hired in the position becomes less and less sure about his/her daily duties. This leads to frustration and disengaged with the company, which further results in employee attrition. So, empower your employees to make the right decisions by clearly defining their job description.

Offer adequate advancement opportunities
Growth and development form the crux of human life and development. Employees expect that the employer should reward their loyalty and good performance by offering them better girth and development opportunities within the organization. Create and implement a career advancement ladder for your employees so that they are aware of their growth and development opportunities within the firm. This way, the employee knows what it needs to do to get a promotion or a raise in the salary. It keeps the employee engaged and rooted in the company.

Conduct regular performance reviews to identify the strengths, weaknesses and core competencies of the employees. This allows you to provide them with better learning and development opportunities to improve their shortcomings and enhance their chances of career advancement. If an employee is convinced about a proper career map within the organization, they are more likely to stick around with the organization to achieve higher career goals.

Keep your employees engaged
Over a period of time, employees become disengaged doing the same task day after day. This situation, if not handled properly, can lead to employee attrition.

There are many reasons for employee disengagement at work. It could be the dearth of better opportunities, bad managers and no salary hike, among others. It is important to find the cause of employee disengagement as it greatly impacts his/her efficiency and productivity and the company as a whole.

Employers should make an effort to keep their employees motivated and engaged at work. Immediate managers should come up with interesting ideas and sessions periodically to boost employee morale and engagement. Where possible employers could intrude healthy competition within the teams to bring excitement at work and boost the engagement levels of the employees.

Disengagement should not be allowed to thrive for long as this will only feed negativity among the workforce, which, if not addressed in time, will result in employee attrition. Identify your potential employees who are constantly disengaged with the company despite your best efforts. Conduct a one-to-one discussion with such employees and try to understand and address their problem areas. Provide them with the best solutions possible to bring them back to the mainstream workforce. This will greatly help you reduce your employee attrition rates.

Provide retention bonus
A bonus for staying with the organization is more important and influential than a bonus for joining the company. Therefore, make it a point to award the longevity and loyalty of your employees by providing them an appropriate raise in their salary, added vacation leaves, and a bonus once they complete 3, 5 or 10 years of employment with your company. This is more like paying gratuity for their long-standing association with the company. This will make your employees feel wanted while encouraging them to stay longer with the organization.

You can offer them rewards based on seniority, like paid memberships at professional associations, full reimbursement of their local gym memberships and uniform expenses. You can design retention packages to increase the pay of the employees. A retention bonus offers more value, credibility and stability to the employer-employee relationship, leading to further long term associations, thus, reducing the employee attrition rate.

Employee attrition is inevitable. Because an employee, after a certain point, seeks a change of work atmosphere and the company. This behaviour could not be changed as it is a gradual human process. However, there are several aspects that could be amended and modified to ensure that your employees are happy and satisfied with your company.