Your Employees Are Leaving You – Here’s What To Do

According to research by Glassdoor, 18% of people consider changing jobs in January, and it has nothing to do with the typical January blues.

From needing a new challenge, having negative relationships with colleagues, to feeling unfulfilled – the truth is, salary is not the main reason people want to leave your company.

However, while employees leaving can be a shock to the system, this can be turned into an opportunity of discovery so that this one case doesn’t lead to a ripple effect and a costly recruitment campaign.

If you’re currently struggling with high staff turnover, here’s a few ways you can get to the bottom of the big issue and ensure you become a place people don’t want to leave.

Exit interviews are a chance for both employee and employer to really understand what went wrong.

While it’s easy for employees to try and smooth over the true meaning of their departure, it’s important that you get an honest and authentic answer as to why they are truly leaving the organisation.

It might well be that they feel there is no path for progression, or more seriously it could be an office bully who’s got out of hand, or that the culture has become so toxic it has begun to have an impact on their health and wellbeing.

The fact is, you need to know where the deepest cracks lie within your company culture so that you can begin to strategise on how the organisation can improve.

The presumption that people only leave for pay is a naive concept, you only need to look at some of the strongest company cultures in the world to realise that no amount of money can make many of their employees leave.

As a leader, it can feel like a personal attack when somebody leaves the organisation, but it’s essential that rather than taking offense you look much deeper at what’s broken.

Yes, just like any other relationship, you have to look at how your actions and the actions of the organisation have encouraged this break-up.

If your company begins to see a surge in leavers, even if it’s two within a short period, this is a sign that you need to conduct a full culture audit to understand the gaps in the organisation and ensure this doesn’t become a major issue.

As you will know, recruitment is a costly affair, and if you start having to recruit regularly due to sudden leavers you will not only find your operations becoming messy, but you’ll also find your bank balance taking a hard hit.

A culture audit will quickly identify not only current emotions amongst your employees but will delve deep into areas such as learning and development, environment and operations.

Getting a full analysis such as this can help your organisation begin to strategise and improve the entire culture so that retention goes up, and that rather large recruitment fee disappears.

Unfortunately, in some instances, an employee departure can be a good thing.

Perhaps they didn’t hold the right values to align with the company mission, or their negative attitude disrupted other employees. The analogy of a relationship is true, sometimes they work out, other times you wonder why on earth you didn’t let them go sooner?

With this in mind, when a leaver such as this happens, it’s good to take stock and think about the type of person you would like to replace them with.

What sort of characters does your organisation need, and how will they help to support the organisation’s mission and values?

Don’t dismiss the fact that employees are leaving you, embrace the situation and see how you can learn from it to create a stronger company culture.

If you need support in conducting a culture audit, discover how my culture consultancy can help you create a happier and healthier place to work.