This infographic outlines nine ways you can avoid a high staff turnover, making sure you keep your best employees for the long haul

For some job roles, you may think employees are a dime a dozen. But having a high turnover of employees within a business can be an unexpected cost, one that can set you back for years. 

Research from Instant Offices reveals that the average turnover cost of a mid-level employee is 150 per cent of their annual salary.

The loss of skills, contacts, the time and effort it takes to interview and vet new candidates and so on are all hidden costs, and they add up.

You can avoid a high staff turnover by knowing what triggers your team and how to let them know you value them.

According to the research, employees are most likely to leave a company if they feel stagnant in their career progression.

Keep your employees engaged in these nine simple ways:

Remind your staff why your company is great

Remember that rush you had when you first set your business up? If you feel like that “start-up” vigour has started to wear thin, pump yourself and your company up!

Sometimes some ‘internal PR’ can be good for morale.

Share your company’s strengths and let employees know just how lucky they are to work on a winning team.

Offer an opportunity for growth

If you’re in the energy-intensive process of growing your business, chances are your employees are just as invested in your success.

Show them that you’re invested in their success too by talking to each of your teammates on their ambitions, taking stock of where they are now and where they want to be in the next five years.

If you can align their personal milestones with your company’s own milestones, you may have a dedicated and passionate employee for life.

Train and build your employees’ skills

Talented people can get restless if they feel like their job is too easy. Challenge your team with interesting and varied tasks that split between creative projects, and the necessary humdrum chores that may be part of their job descriptions.

Of course, you can’t set your team up to fail. Make sure they’re trained and equipped with new skills that can help bring more value back into your business.

There are a number of free training tools available online, from Open University courses to Google’s own training webinars.

If your business can afford it, set aside a training budget for CIPD courses or for bringing in a trainer for an in-house workshop.

Improve their work-life balance

Larger organisations struggle with the insidious culture of presenteeism, where employees fill seats and pull long shifts to appear more industrious than they really are.

Not only is this practice counterproductive, it sucks the fun out of the creative, flexible, impassioned workplace culture most start-ups enjoy.

Keep the zest up by allowing flexible working, encouraging out-of-office team meetings, and fun, social gatherings.

Re-evaluate their compensation

When it comes to salaries, do you know the industry average for each of the job roles in your business?

These figures vary, so keep up to date by checking salary data resources like Payscale.com.

Don’t assume your employees are happy with their compensation.

Start an open dialogue with them on an individual basis and see how you can scale up their compensation, whether in the form of extra days off in the year, a better health plan, or stronger pension plan.

Recognise accomplishments

While a sizeable bonus would be nice, if you can’t afford to splash cash every time your employees hit targets, recognition can be as simple as a a gift voucher, a congratulatory email, or team-wide announcements.

Hire the right people from the start

It may seem like you urgently need to hire for certain roles, but avoid rushing the recruitment process.

Fully evaluating a potential employee takes time, and while their calibre, work experience and qualifications might be great on paper, understanding their personality, and assessing whether they’d be a good fit with the rest of the team and the work culture of your business takes more than one interaction.

WorldFirst, a global business with humble beginnings, grew because of this principle. Speaking to GrowthBusiness, co-founder and CEO Jonathan Quin explained how both co-founders would meet each employee individually in and outside work to make the final decision.

The company is now present all over the world, including hard-to-crack markets like China, and it all started with the right hiring decisions.

Utilise employees’ full potential

Just as training can help keep your employees sharp, it’s crucial to give them challenges that allow them to flex their work muscles.

Whether it’s spearheading a project, or introducing a new workplace initiative, delegating tasks that make your employees feel accountable can boost productivity and keep them engaged.

Share your vision, and maybe some stake

Studies have shown that employees that feel like they’re part of something big will feel invested and loyal to its development and goals. If you include your employees in business planning meetings, brainstorming sessions for new ideas, or in monthly forecast catch-ups, they are more likely to care how they perform individually, and how your business performs in the long run.