“New Year, New Career”: How to Reduce New Year Turnover

The coming of the New Year is a time for reflection that leads many Australians to start reconsidering their employment options. With “new year, new career” a popular New Year’s resolution, employers will need to consider a different kind of resolution: keeping top performers on board.

Traditionally, the first few months of the year are the biggest in both staff resignations and recruitment, with New Year resolutions having a big impact on employee retention. If staff are not feeling valued or engaged, workers may decide that the New Year is the right time to look for a new challenge or for a position where their efforts will be appreciated.

To avoid losing key staff members to the competition, employers need to act now with simple retention strategies.

Here are our top tips to reduce New Year turnover in 2012:

1.    Energise staff for an exciting year ahead

Get the year off to a positive start, by focusing on your past and future achievements. To show staff that their work is valued, consider celebrating the return to work informally by recognising achievements both big and small.

Next, get staff energised for the year ahead by setting goals and communicating your 12-month business vision. Show staff where their work fits into that vision by demonstrating why their goals matter to the bigger picture. This is particularly important after any festive season breaks, so employees can become excited about your business again after their time away.

2.    Show staff a bright future with your business

Top performers are never content to sit back and relax when they are doing well. Show staff what they can look forward to by staying and excelling with your business.

For individual employees, sit down with top performers to create a twelve-month development plan and show where their skills will grow, including both internal and external training options as appropriate. To motivate the entire organisation, create and communicate exciting career pathways that staff can aspire to. If employees don’t see career options available in your business, they will look for them elsewhere.

3.    Invite staff to use their underutilised skills and knowledge

Staff often feel that their skills are underutilised in their current roles, leading them to look for new challenges elsewhere. Actively encourage and invite employees to use their underutilised skills and knowledge in different projects or duties.
Give staff small projects to work on that still fit within their job scope, to increase their sense of achievement and job satisfaction. For duties and projects that are over and beyond their job description, ask their permission first. You’ll be surprised at how often your staff will be excited to say yes to new projects.

Use this strategy to solicit new ideas and feedback for business innovation and improvements, by offering both formal and informal avenues for staff ideas, such as surveys, brainstorming forums, planning meetings, and verbal feedback. Show staff that their skills and knowledge matter, and you’ll benefit from an engaged workforce that is utilising their skills for your business’ good.

4.    Encourage open and transparent communication

Effective communication is essential to everyday staff satisfaction. Without open and transparent communication, staff will feel undervalued and unimportant.

For important changes, be sure to communicate the appropriate details to staff at the right time. It’s essential for management to tell staff directly about changes that affect them, or risk information being spread by other staff members. Consider online staff communication tools to make announcements easier and to increase employee engagement, such as staff social networks like Yammer and Jawshare.

5.    Get the right people on board

The easiest way to increase employee retention is to hire the right people in the first place. Employees that fit into their positions and into your workplace culture will be far more satisfied, motivated, and will also perform better. Review your interviewing and screening strategies to ensure that you are looking for the right criteria when you hire new staff.

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