How to Reduce Employee Turnover in Frontline Businesses?

A PwC study found that in the last 6 months, 36% of manufacturers experienced 10% attrition rates among frontline employees. Similarly, a McKinsey study found that at least 50% of frontline retail workers are planning to quit their current jobs and look for better experiences.

These statistics highlight one of the biggest issues faced by frontline businesses. Businesses that need frontline employees tend to lose their employees faster than they can hire new ones. This means that they are spending endless resources on hiring and training, but those employees do not stay around for long.

A high employee turnover rate causes financial losses, lowers team morale, decreases operational productivity, and weakens team collaboration. Thus, it is important to reduce employee turnover.

This article will help you understand the primary causes of employee turnover in 2024. It will also take you through proven strategies to reduce employee turnover.

What is Employee Turnover?

Employee turnover is the rate at which employees resign from your organization and are replaced by new hires in a given period. It often reflects underlying problems within your organization.

Primary Causes of Employee Turnover in 2024

The 5 primary causes of employee turnover in 2024 are:

1. Work-Life Balance

One of the top reasons why employees leave their jobs is poor work/life balance.

A poor work-life balance means that your employees are not getting a chance to enjoy their personal lives outside of their careers.

This results in a high-stress environment that negatively affects the employee’s morale and causes job burnout. It also results in poor employee experience.

2. Compensation and Benefits

Poor compensation and benefits increase employee turnover. They also act as a barrier when you try to create a positive work environment for your frontline workers.

This is because paying your employees well is one way of showing them that you value their contributions. It will also protect them from financial hardships, thus keeping their productivity high.

Because of higher compensation, you will also be able to reduce the risk of your top performers joining your competitor’s company.

3. Lack of Purpose and Fulfillment

Employees tend to prefer companies where they are able to find and fulfill their purpose. This motivates them to work and also boosts their employee engagement levels.

Without it, they will not feel proud of their company as well as their role in it, which reduces their retention rates.

4. Weak Management

When managers are unable to set and meet team goals, provide the resources and training that employees need, and give constructive feedback to help employees improve, it results in weak management.

Additionally, if there is a presence of biases and an absence of career development opportunities, then your employees will feel mistreated and motivated to quit their jobs.

5. Poor Company Culture

Company culture is said to be poor when the organization’s beliefs and values are broken repeatedly. There is no open and frequent communication between the managers and their team members, and your employees do not feel empowered to do their jobs.

The non-inclusive work environment also makes your company culture poor.

Also Read: Best Strategies for Increasing Flexibility for Frontline Employees

How to Reduce Employee Turnover in Frontline Businesses?

If you want to improve your business operations efficiency, then you must reduce employee turnover. The 6 proven strategies to reduce employee turnover are:

1. Improving Work-Life Balance

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One way to reduce employee turnover in frontline businesses is to help employees improve their work-life balance. This will also help you develop and sustain employee engagement in your work environment.

To make this possible, offer your employees remote work options or flexible hours. This will help them better balance their personal and professional lives. If this is not possible, give your employees their shift schedules well in advance so that they plan accordingly.

Besides, be open to shift swaps so that your employees can attend to emergencies or personal commitments. Lastly, give your employees paid time off and designated break times during their working hours.

2. Enhancing Compensation and Benefits

One strategy for reducing employee turnover is to give them fair and competitive compensation and benefits packages. These should be structured so that your employees feel well-rewarded for all their contributions.

Your benefits package should also free them from worrying about other financial obligations. To do so, you can offer them health insurance, retirement plans, and bonuses for completing a competitive project or reaching a target.

To ensure that your offer is fair, monitor what other companies are paying for the same skills. Try to offer higher packages to employees in roles that will be hard to fill if vacated, and set a policy to provide annual base pay increases.

Also, identify top performers and help them advance their careers, thus securing higher pay within your own organization. This will help you improve the retention of frontline employees and secure their loyalty and commitment to your organization.

3. Fostering a Sense of Purpose

To improve the retention of frontline employees, you must foster a sense of purpose in their role within your organization. For that, you must establish a strong top-down communication chain that will help them get a clear idea about the beliefs and values of your organization as well as their role in it.

With a purpose-driven culture in place, they will be able to be proud of their contributions. Additionally, it will keep them motivated to work harder and better for your organization during difficult times and even when they have better job offers.

It will also make them determined to learn new skills and develop their existing skills so that they can perform better. Lastly, launch employee recognition programs to foster a sense of purpose and acknowledge the efforts of your employees.

4. Investing in Learning and Development

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When your employees have access to skill development, training, and opportunities to get new knowledge and participate in more challenging projects, they will see a future with your organization.

Additionally, have one-on-one meetings with them to help them advance in their careers and align their career goals with your organizational goals. You can also give them regular feedback, which will help them identify areas for improvement and how they can perform better. This will help you win the trust of your employees and successfully build a culture of appreciation for recognizing your frontline employees.

5. Strengthening Management Practices

Strong management practices are essential for keeping employees in your organization for a longer period of time. They build a diverse and inclusive frontline team.

They should be able to understand and address bias in the frontline teams and ensure that every employee is recognized for their contributions. Moreover, the management must communicate effectively so that they can win the trust of their employees. While doing so, your management team should be respectful, understanding, and empathetic towards all your employees.

6. Cultivating a Positive Company Culture

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A positive company culture is one where the policies are fair and consistent, values like compassion and community are followed, and good behavior and effective employee communication are promoted.

Also, ensure that your employees get sufficient break times between their working hours, that their managers communicate with them frequently, and that they are given opportunities to learn and grow. Additionally, your managers must be able to delegate tasks to their team members effectively and without favoritism.

Lastly, the overall company culture must be inclusive, and you can even use AI to elevate your company culture for your frontline employees.

Also Read: 2024 in Focus: Cost Savings with Frontline Employee Retention

The Role of Technology in Reducing Turnover

By using technologies like human resource management software, learning management software, performance management software, and employee engagement and feedback tools, you will be able to reduce employee turnover and improve retention.

These tools will help you improve communication between multiple teams and departments and automate repetitive tasks. They will also help you identify employee’s pain points and what changes you need to make to remove them.

Additionally, these tools will easily give them access to training opportunities and resources to reach their career goals. Thus, leveraging technology to reduce employee turnover in frontline business is a cost-effective strategy that you must utilize.

Case Studies and Success Stories

Ardent Health Services collaborated with The EMPLOYEE app in 2017 to connect with their frontline staff easily, conveniently, and on the go.

The main purpose behind launching this was to ensure that their frontline staff did not fall victim to miscommunication and that they did not miss safety information or messages from the leadership. This would help them improve the retention of frontline employees.

When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, this app became a boon for them. It served as a platform for sharing positive community stories and how the public is giving back to caregivers and COVID-19 patients. It also became a platform for sharing additional employee benefits like free laundry, making employees feel valued and taken care of.

Additionally, leaders started using the app to appreciate the efforts of their frontline employees. With their contributions being recognized and appreciated, the employees’ engagement and loyalty to the organization only strengthened further, even in the most challenging times.

Thus, by leveraging The EMPLOYEE app, Ardent Health Services was able to easily follow all strategies for reducing employee turnover.

Also Read: How Employee Comms Can Influence Recruitment and Retention?

Conclusion

Reducing employee turnover in frontline businesses is important if you want to improve efficiency, productivity, and profitability. By understanding its common causes and using strategies to reduce turnover, you can ensure that your employees are satisfied, happy, and engaged with your organization.

To achieve this, you can use technologies like The EMPLOYEE app, which will improve your communication with all your employees, give them easy access to information, documents, and tools that they need, and make it convenient for you to collect their feedback.

This app will also give you the necessary insights that will help you identify areas of improvement.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What benefits can improve the retention of frontline employees?

Benefits packages that include health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, and employee wellness programs will help you improve employee retention.

2. How can frontline businesses measure the effectiveness of their retention strategies?

You can measure the effectiveness of your retention strategies by tracking employee turnover rates, conducting employee satisfaction surveys, and analyzing performance metrics.

3. What steps should businesses take to reduce employee turnover proactively?

To reduce employee turnover, you should identify causes of turnover, implement targeted retention strategies, regularly assess the effectiveness of your strategies, and make adjustments based on employee feedback and data analysis.