Not All Employee Turnover is Bad
There’s no denying that, when it comes to staffing your company, you want to find the employees who will work hard and stay for a long time. There’s no need to go in depth for why – it benefits your company by having those types of employees because it reduces the need for hiring and training, as well as ensures your company is operating efficiently and productively.
Although it may go without saying, the result of finding and retaining high quality employees also means weeding out the undesirable candidates during that talent acquisition process. These candidates, if hired, are usually the ones that contribute to lower performance numbers and high attrition problems. Of these problems, performance is one that tends to lead to attrition. A struggling employee may be more likely to be a “no call, no show”, or flat out quit out of desperation. Sometimes a low performing employee may wait until they’re fired, resulting in involuntary attrition.
How Turnover of Poor Performing Employees Can Be Good
Regardless, one way or another, a poor performing employee is now out of the position, leaving the seat vacant for someone who could be much better suited for the position. In theory, this could be a good thing, could it not? The bad employee leaves, making room for the potential good employee to come in quicker.
Well, yes and no. When you have a bad performing employee your options are fairly limited. To summarize in two choices: you can either continue to invest in a poor performing employee and hope it pays off, or you can fire the employee and start the process over. But, if the employee leaves, it can feel almost like a free pass – you didn’t have to fire the employee, and didn’t have to invest any further in them. That’s the positive.
Turnover Does Drive Up Hiring Costs
The not-so-positive aspects of losing employees who aren’t performing comes in a few areas. Firstly comes in the cost of hiring. FurstPerson estimates it costs a company $4-5 thousand per hire. The more you have to hire, the more you end up spending – and if you have employees who are consistently leaving because of bad fits, you’re going to need to be consistently hiring, which means continuously spending thousands of dollars.
And that’s not the end of the spending. If you’re continuously hiring that also means you’re investing in employee training for your new hires, which is costly not only from a training room aspect, but also expensive since, the longer they remain away from their job, the longer it will take to get a return from investing in that employee. So, just from getting rid of poor performing employees, you’re already considering two potential costs that you could have otherwise avoided.
It is Easier to Have the Best Performing Employees Identified and Hired During Talent Acquisition
Losing a poor performing employee does mean you have the opportunity to hire a better performing one, but wouldn’t it just be easier to have the best performing employees identified and hired during the talent acquisition process? Rather than gamble on a hire, use the hiring process to identify what a good employee looks like, and target those skills to find the best employee possible. This will lower turnover while increasing performance, without having the concern (and costs) of continuous hiring and training.
To help target the best employees that will help your company in the short and long term, download our whitepaper on seven steps to better hiring below.
