It’s Monday morning. You just got settled at work when your top performer walks in and hands you a resignation letter. Ugh, it’s not how you wanted to start your day. Not to mention, the thought of breaking the news to your boss makes your stomach turn. And you think to yourself, Why didn’t I see this coming?
Employee turnover is expensive
Losing an employee can cost you anywhere from 20 percent to over 200 percent of their annual salary. Turnover is also extremely disruptive for the rest of your team. As a manager, you spend a lot of time developing talent. When your top performers decide to leave, that investment leaves with them, productivity takes a hit, and so does employee morale.
Recruiting new talent is expensive too
Turnover is expensive, but so is attracting and hiring new talent. It’s a cost you incur each and every time you have to replace an employee who has left. Not to mention, finding new talent is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s competitive labor market.
Know who’s a flight risk and who plans to stick around
Top performer analytics tell you how many employees are actively considering a new job opportunity. They’ll also tell you why it’s happening — and what you can do to prevent turnover in the first place.
An intentional culture is your best insurance plan
As a manager, you can be intentional about culture, or you can let culture happen to you. Teams that don’t engage in a dialogue with their employees will find that conversation taking place somewhere else and without your knowledge. If you want to craft the type of culture that makes people want to stick around, you need to ask your employees what’s on their minds — and then be prepared to listen.
Make sure your top performers are committed. Start by getting intentional about your workplace culture. There are lots of ways to go about that, but here are three proven steps we recommend:
- Know where your culture stands. Start by asking those who know your culture best: your employees. A research-based, third-party employee engagement survey is the best way to get the insight you need.
- Know what good looks like. If you want to understand your culture and learn the right way to improve it, you need to go beyond simple benchmarks. Comparative analytics provide you with valuable culture insights and actionable intelligence.
- Up your culture game. With comparative analytics in hand, you can pinpoint what’s causing your top performers to look for new opportunities and then plan improvements to minimize it. You can also see if the actions you’ve taken have had a positive impact.
When you’re intentional about culture, employee engagement is the outcome. Your team is committed to the organization, they’re passionate about their work, and they’ll even recruit their friends for you.
