Bad Management Fuels Employee Turnover

It’s not just poor training that hampers the retention rates of these frontline workers. More often than not, bad management is going to cause an exodus of frontline employees. One way to fix bad management is to train it to be better.

Hopkins believes a person appointed to a managerial position not only needs training once he or she take the position, but also requires consistent leadership coaching throughout his or her tenure.

“Every six months do a refresher course for managers,” says Hopkins. “It’s really good to calibrate at the beginning of each year.”

If they’re not already, BSCs should educate their management on the importance of employee retention and how it impacts business.

Retention issues are about way more than having to constantly fill a revolving door at one or more positions. Constant turnover results in work that often takes more time to complete and is of lesser quality because those doing the labor are always learning on the job.

“The minute you reduce turnover you increase efficiencies, which improves profitability,” says Miller.

Consistently putting a new employee out to work causes other issues. For one, Miller says customers like the idea of seeing a face they know. They want to see the same tasks conducted by the same janitors. 

BSCs would be wise to crunch numbers so that ownership and managers know just how much they’re losing due to turnover, both in profit and customer satisfaction.

In addition to providing concrete evidence of how retention woes are hemorrhaging profits, BSCs should make it be known to managers that there is a correlation of employee retention and the job performance of the manager. How often employees leave should be a bit of a reflection of how well the management is doing.

Management can also be motivated. Hopkins suggests employee retention figures be tied into a manager’s bonus structure. That way, management is going to feel the BSC’s success if retention numbers are good.

Another way to slow retention woes is to hire an expert. Hopkins says BSCs should consider hiring a staffing coordinator, that way at least one person is devoted to hiring and retention every week.

“A staffing coordinator might cost you $35,000 a year, but if you look at the previous year without one, you lost a lot more than that,” says Hopkins.