Turning Over Turnover: Reasons Employees Leave a Company

October 24, 2018

By: Adam Vortherms

Turnover. It’s an unfortunate reality in any company or business. We will never fully be able to avoid it, but we can work to minimize it. Yet sometimes we look around and find our corporation experiencing a high rate of turnover and can’t quite figure out why it is happening. A recent survey conducted by HRBartender.com polled employees in a business with a single question: “If you were to start looking for a new job today, what would be the number one reason?” This survey is specific to the business in question, of course, but the findings are useful for anyone working to diagnose an issue with increasing employee turnover.

Advancement, Flexibility, Management

The survey found that opportunities for advancement, flexibility within current positions, and supportive management cover 20% of responses, respectively. These are all interconnected symptoms of a larger organism: supportive management will empower their employees with greater responsibilities. This leads to an increased flexibility in their positions. This flexibility can show an employee’s strengths and help them to advance within a company. If any link in this chain is weak, then it will fall apart completely.

Training and Support

A portion respondents indicated that they would leave due to a lack of training and development. A great training process is vital for successful and content employees. When employees are not set up to be their most productive selves, it can lead to communication issues with management over expectations or continued frustration with their current job situation. It could be useful to take a step back and evaluate your current practices: Do you participate in ongoing training that continues on after the initial on-boarding process? Do you conduct manager ride-alongs to see what your team needs live and in-person? Do you provide inside sales reports for your sales team to keep everyone on track and on the same page?

Non-Related Activities

When it comes to sales, your team was hired with a certain set of ideas about their income and commissions in the context of a 40-hour work week. But there’s a lot that goes into sales that doesn’t feed into commission. For instance, it can come down to something as simple as drive time. If you are asking your sales team to cover a large territory, driving from place to place eats up time that could have been spent selling and earning commission. Or, for example, utilizing a CRM system. CRM systems are crucial to sales, yet many times reps are required to spend hours organizing and editing all of that information. Of course, having a well-organized and updated system is vital to a healthy sales team, but a balance must be found between preparation and the sale itself.

Evaluating Your Team

The truth is that the only real way to pinpoint why your company may be experiencing increased turnover is to encourage regular stay interviews and exit interviews. This will help you to form a full picture of your specific company’s practices: your strengths, your weaknesses, and everything in between. Sometimes, you may find that employees shy away from being completely candid with their own employers. In such cases, outside companies such as Grapevine Recruiting can help you to gather a full, holistic picture of your current practices.

Give Grapevine Recruiting a call today at (952)856-2371 or visit the contact page at our website. We’ll set up a free, no obligation consultation with myself or another highly qualified member of our team. Grapevine can start you down the road to reduce turnover and keep your employees happy and fulfilled in their current positions.