Employee Attrition 101: All You Need To Know

There are not many people who start their career and end work for only one company.

Most of the people either naturally leave the company or they get involuntary termination forced by the company itself.

According to Global Workplace‘s stats in 2017, more than 85% of employees are not engaged with what their jobs are.  Well, it would be reasonable to ask why such employees fail to meet the tasks and not deliver their best performance.

As for the business, isn’t good that such an employee leaves tch company? After all, it affects the performance of the company and the profits.

However, there is a lot to unpack when it comes to employee attrition, and how it affects the company. To understand it better,  this article might help.

What Does Employee Attrition Mean?

As for business, employee attrition is the cycle of employment,

when employees leave the company by any method. It can be volunteer resignations from the job or even illness or death.

Whenever the employee leaves and it doesn’t get replaced for a for a longer time, this is known as employee attrition.

reasons employee attrition happens

There is a different type of attrition that can be considered such as:

Voluntary Attrition

Also is known as Voluntary Resignation which means the employee leaves the company at their own decision.  

There can be different reasons behind why the employee left the company.

Such as :

  • Having stressful period for a long time
  • Lack of applications
  • Not having the right job for their skills
  • Growth opportunity is limited
  • Getting the better pay from different organization

Well, these reasons are most known for voluntary resignation. But Job shopping is the key aspect that increases the chances.

According to  72%  of millennials believe that they won’t last in one organization, at least not more than 2 years.

Most of the millennials do the experiments with their career aspirations.

Involuntary Attrition

Unlike the volumetry attribution, this one is not when the employee leaves the company on their own.

Involuntary attrition is when the employee has to leave the job or gets terminated due to their ethical misconduct or lack of performance.

However, for the organization, this one can be helpful and help in keeping the workflow more productive.

This will improve the organization and filter out the unproductive employee.

Retirement

Retirement is one of the untouched facets that is not discussed that much.

However, if the company is not ready, employee retirement can be a big blow.  In such a situation, the employee who retires is generally the most experienced and for the organization, it’s hard to fill the space, especially if it’s too soon.

That’s why it’s important for the employee who is about to retire to inform the company. At least the 11th hour is necessary to keep the organization moving and find someone to fill the shoes.

Internal Attrition

Internal Attrition means when the employee has to leave their designated team or department so they can join some other department.

However, this can be the desirable attrition as the employee has the opportunity to choose the department where they want to go and grow better.

But if some specific department is receiving more rates in attrition, then the organization’s signification has to do the investigation so they can find the root problem.

Demographic Attrition

Well, this one can be on specific attrition, it can be a group of employees that are ethnic minorities, women, veterans, etc who are leaving the company.

In such situations, the company requires them to take action as fast as they can.  There might be some serious issues or problems that are causing the demographic attrition.

What Is the Difference Between Attrition and Turnover?

There is a lot of confusion when it comes to employee attrition and turnover. They both have somewhat similar meanings but there are some extremely important distinctions between the two.

The key difference between the two is the turnovers measures all the terminations, and it also includes the positions which are filled again.

When it’s attrition, it can take a long term to get the long-term vacancies or positions that are eliminations which are all together.

If your company is having high rates of attrition, it means your company is shrinking. But the company can have stability and growth even if they have high turnovers.

How Much the Attrition Cost to The Company?

What makes the attrition dangerous for the companies is the lack of preparations.  This can leave a big void, and the sudden attrition causes the cost to the company.

Here are some points on how attrition can cost the company.

Loss in Experience

Employees don’t just leave the company physically.  With them, they take the experience that they earn throughout the years.

The company requires the time to fill up the lost inexperience, which adds pressure to the rest of the team and department.

Cost of Adding Training for New Employees

When the employees leave, the company is required to fill the gap and for that, they need the new hiring.  The cost of providing the intensive session to the new customer and the hassle to go through the training.

Adding Pressure on Others

Not just the company had to go through the employee attrition. but it affects the other employees who are working for the business.

When the employees leave, the others have to work but the gap can affect the flow. 

Extra Work & Overtime

The company employees have to cover up the gap and do the overtime. They have to do the extra work and manage the work.

It can add stress and creates a cyclic process for the employees who have to bear all the work.

High Chances of Unproductivity

Employee attrition can cause stress and chaos in the team. This can cause more chances of unproductivity which affects the quality of services and products.

How to Reduce Rate in The Attrition of Employees?

Well to make sure your company’s successful, your attrition rate should be slowed down. And for that, you need to focus on small things first.

Start with understanding the motivation that drives your employees to work in the first place. It will help in addressing the main problems before it can do any kind of substantial damage.

factors affecting employee attrition

To help you in reducing the attrition rate, here are some of the strategies that you can consider.

Start with Analysing the Workforce

To understand about your employee, you can focus on analyzing the workplace first.

You can use the different techniques that can help, it can be feedback, polls, surveys, etc. Run these small strategies to gather the information and understand the workplace better.

It can help you in knowing more about what your employee actually wants. Also, if there are any gaps in the workplace and environment, you can also identify that.

You can also understand what your employees feel working in the current working environment and team. 

If there are any challenges or special requirements that they need, by analyzing you can find it too.

You can figure out about the specific team which is having a high amount of attrition. And with one on one meetings with employees and managers, you can tackle the problem.

Creating Pleasant Working Environment

According to the research, it says 65% of employees feel isolated because their work environment is either unhelpful or feel hostile.

Employees spend most of their time in the workplace, it’s important to have an enrolment that can be warm and inviting to make them feel comfortable.

A pleasant working environment can help in boosting the happy, engaged, and more productive team for the organization.

This helps in boosting the opportunities to improve and appreciate each other to keep them motivated.

Team Building Based on Personalities

There are different kinds of employees that work in your company and each of them has their own personalities.

There might be some natural leaders, carefree risk-takers, perfectionists, detail-oriented masters, or innovators.

The organization requires to understand what kind of personalities their employee’s careers are about. 

Use this for creating your team. This will help in improving the understanding among the teammates but also boost the results.

Recheck Your Human Resources Policies

Well for an organization, understanding its human resource policies is important.

Especially when the world is living in the past and age of communication.

Having policies that are still focused on the industrial era can be the issue behind your higher attrition rate.

When you have HR policies that are outdated and rigid, it can also make it difficult to engage as well as retain the employees.

That’s why you should recheck the policies. Make sure it’s updated and focus on today’s culture of working.

Reframe your policies and make them people-centric so they can match today’s workday dynamic.

Hassle-Free Internal Movement

According to the research conducted by London Business School, there were more than 47% of 1000 individuals who wanted to change their careers.

Well, career path change is one of the common reasons why employees leave their job.

They find it difficult to fit in as it is not what they want to continue or find comfortable. Or it can be a desire that they developed throughout their working experience.

Providing the option so the employee can switch their department within the company can help you in reducing the attrition rate.

Also, keep the policies simple too so the switch can be hassle-free.

Offer Benefits, Perks, And Flexibility

Based on the Boston college center for work and family study, 76% of managers and 80% of employees believe that having flexibility in the work arrangements has positive effects on retention.

Adding flexibility which can be –

  • Work from home
  • Flexible working hours
  • Working remotely
  • Flexible time offs
  • Paternity leaves
  • Maternity leaves
  • Sabbatical to complete education

These kinds of flexibility can be extremely beneficial for the company as it improves employee satisfaction and retaining rate.

It shows that the manager trusts their employees to get their work done. Also, it’s good for the employer–employee bond. 

Also, the employees move to another job mostly because they are dissatisfied with the financial requirements.

That’s why it’s important to offer a salary that can be competent as well as relevant to the market trends.

You can also add exclusive perks and other benefits to make the salary package more suitable. However, it depends on the employee’s experience and other aspects.

Engaged More of The Employees

For a great company culture, there is no magic formula. However, the key here is to treat your employees the way they wanted to be treated.

Managers can find hassle when the communication becomes hard or the other aspects start to affect the process.

That’s why it’s important to make the necessary changes and support the requirements that your employees have. This can help you in keeping your managers focused on their work without any hassle.

Optime Your Recruitment

To make sure you have a lower attrition rate, it’s important to focus on your requirement process too.

Make sure you have specific and clear requirements regarding what kind of job and candidates.

Make the outlines, set goals and responsibilities.  It will help in removing any kind of disappointment of the employees when they know what to expect from their jobs.

Also, it will reduce resource waste and you will hire the right candidate for the work.

Boost the Engagement

There should be more opportunities and help to improve the employee as individuals. There are lots of people who leave work because they don’t find a way which can improve or add anything to their working experience.

The company requires to boost the engagement as the individual and help in achieving their personal goals apart from organization goals.

Without having the engagement strategies, your employees can also feel bored and unproductive which will affect the work too.

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