In lots of businesses across the U.S., employee turnover is a huge resources drain. Experts have figured out that the true cost of employee turnover can be much higher than many of us would think. As a result, everyone from corporate heads to small business owners are trying to figure out how to keep workers. There are a lot of issues, including the work environment, career incentives and managing who gets each part of the financial pie.

Management training can help companies decrease employee turnover in various ways that can be very effective. These kinds of resources deal with all of the above considerations and study how to improve the situation regarding an employee turnover rate in a business. Managers can look for:

1. training on how to avoid high employee turnover statistics due to general negativity and a "downer" work environment.

2. training on how to handle conflict resolution that can lead to a lot of employees turn over if left unmanaged.

3. ways to fight employee turnover with career and economic incentives, or intangible incentives for employee retention.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Get training to reduce workplace negativity and combat employee turnover

Some companies online offer training in 'positive management,' helping department heads and others triumph over workplace negativity. Dynamic programs can re-energize those in charge of morale and pave the way toward success.

I recommend: Alliance Training and Consulting helps workplaces overcome negativity with management training that will keep workers on board. Get managing personal and team effectiveness options from C. Madden Lifestyle Management.

Get training in conflict resolution for employee turnover solutions

Another big path toward higher employee turnover is conflicts that often threaten to sink a steady ship; an uncontrolled struggle over finances, schedules, or anything else can devastate morale at a business. Find trainings on how to defuse conflicts and help your shop prosper.

I recommend: You can get on-site conflict resolution seminars from Workplace Issues to deal with whatever comes between your staff members. Get more for conflict resolution and other tricky issues like this course for "Confronting the Tough Stuff" from the American Management Association, offering training in over 170 cities.

Look for employee retention resources to curb employee turnover

Another way to deal with the burden of employee turnover is to offer employees retention programs including incentives. This practice has paid off well for many companies. Employees of nearly any level respond well to receiving incentives from companies to keep them happy at their jobs. Whether it's employee days, subsidized continuing education, flex time, bonuses or any other rewards, incentives go a long way toward overall low turnover.

I recommend: Get worker retention workshops and other management training from Greg P. Smith. Alternatively, find more retention trainings from High Retention.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  When looking at training for employee turnover solutions, think about what format is best: online or on-site, and what kind of time frame? Questions like these will help you fit your trainings into the big picture.

Employee turnover can cost your business 120 to 200% of a departing employee's annual salary and experts estimate that it takes new employees around 13 months to get up to speed in a new position. A recent study by CIGNA Behavioral Health found that over 45% of workers had considered leaving their jobs in the last year or had already left.

Many reasons exist why individuals leave their jobs. These include:

1. Wages
2. Benefits
3. Understaffing
4. Poor job fit
5. Lack of Communication

If you want to decrease employee turnover, you'll need to consider why employees leave and how to change those aspects of your business. You can find many resources online to help you resolve common problems and help increase your employee retention.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Implement work/life programs to help decrease employee turnover

Many Fortune 500 companies that routinely rank high on the lists of best companies to work for use work/life programs. Employees like these programs and benefit from them. Aspects like flexible work schedules can help you improve employee retention and recruiting.

I recommend: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has a number of suggestions for improving workplace flexibility, family life and worker health and wellness. Hire a consultant, such as Work Life Balance or Perspectives LTD to help you identity, implement and improve your work/life programs.

Show employees how to increase their productivity

Having more productive employees can often decrease the amount of time that an employee needs to work. Although this will be less of an issue for hourly workers, those on a salary will like being better able to balance their work and personal lives. This can also decrease the amount of stress that employees feel.

I recommend: Show your employees different ways of increasing their productivity. Use software programs like Profile XT, which matches your employees to positions in your business where they can be most successful. This will help them enjoy their position more as well as increasing productivity. Motivate your employees toward greater productivity.

Use team building to decrease employee turnover

Integrate your employees through team building exercises. Team building allows employees to work together to solve problems, reducing their stress factor.

I recommend: Try different team building activities in order to help you with employee turnover. Use various tips to help your meetings run more smoothly and increase your team's commitment to each other. You can also hire team building consultants and companies, like Adventure Associates, who will guide you through the process.

Improve communication for employees

Studies show effective communication about where the company is going and why helps to increase employee retention. Let employees know what you want them to accomplish. Feedback is also important to employees; they want to know how they are doing and to get quick feedback on what you expect. Ask for their input when it's appropriate, giving them a sense of ownership in the direction of their job. Provide positive appreciation for your employees' work.

I recommend: Foster effective communication to help decrease employee turnover. Use sample surveys to get feedback from your employees or build your own surveys to get the information you need. You can also use survey consultants to help you construct an employee feedback survey. Hire a company like Communication Works to help you improve the communication in your business.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Studies indicate that the average worker has more than 200 hours of uncompleted work that has created a backlog. Helping them reduce this amount, and their stress levels about it, can help you retain more employees.
• •  Although employers typically think that wages and benefits are the main reason employees leave a job, studies indicate that aspects like communication problems and understaffing play a large role in this decision. Raising wages may not be enough of an employee retention plan.

With the changes in today's fast-paced business world, companies without a plan for limiting employee turnover are finding themselves left behind. Employee turnover can have a very negative impact on any size business as it takes a certain amount of resources to replace a lost worker and train a new staff member. That's why all kinds of businesses are taking a look at how it shapes a company when employees turn over.

Busy managers and others with concerns about employee turnover can get a lot of great information quickly over the internet. Readers might look for:

1. Employee turnover statistics and info about how rates of employee turnover vary and how it affects businesses.

2. News about solutions to decrease employee turnover and how companies are utilizing tools to fight employee turnover.

3. More about dealing with employee retention and preventing employee turnover day to day in any size business.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find employee turnover statistics and other relevant information

One thing managers and owners might want to read up on is the hard facts on employee turnover rates. Online sites offer analysis and detailed demographics for determining an employee turnover rate within a field.

I recommend: Find employee turnover statistics by region, sector and percentage at Nobscot Corporation's Retention Management and Metrics page. Find more in labor statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor online.

Find news on helping work with and prevent employee turnover

Other news sources online show how business adapts to the problem of high employee turnover. Strategizing details sometimes come from companies that have gone through trial and error to find out how to work against employee turnover.

I recommend: Look for news on sources of employee turnover and what companies can do about it at the Work Institute: "Intelligence for the Management of Human Capital". Find out more from executive briefing site Fierce CEO.

Get more independent news on employee turnover from blogs

Blogs often deal with issues like employee turnover for giving personal, street-level input on root causes, concepts and how to work with employees, retention and reducing turnover. Check out grassroots level websites to get a feel for what some of the independent operators out in the blogosphere think about how the issue is handled by companies they have worked for or observed.

I recommend: Get grassroots employee turnover news at the Maximize Possibility blog. Find more at the Human Capital blogspot.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  When looking at solutions for employee turnover, always use common sense in addressing what would work best for your business. The kind of employee retention plan programs that large companies use are designed for places where managers can't come up with simpler, more personalized programs. Try to always guage the responses of your staff and find out how best to bridge the communications gap to really be effective in dealing with employee turnover and other similar issues.

Employee turnover is a constant problem for many companies and occurs any time a worker or staffer leaves a business. There are many reasons why individuals leave their companies, all of them with unique solutions. Over time, smart companies have begun to think a lot about how to stop each kind of employee turnover from happening, or to mitigate turnover in various ways. Knowing about some of the main key terms around strategy will help a business fight turnover the right way and keep its company healthy.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Work/life programs

A work/life program is a program set up to help workers deal with juggling the demands of their jobs and their home lives, or to correctly balance any kind of work duties with their family lives or lives away from the job. Many companies are using work/life programs to help deal with the challenges employees face, to battle high turnover in a business. Work/life programs can be especially helpful to salaried employees who may feel they are being flooded by their responsibilities.

I recommend: Find out more about work/life and programs at Alliance for Work/Life Progress.

Team building

One strategy for controlling high turnover is team building. Successful team building binds people together and help employees to feel connected to the group and like they're productive members of a community.

I recommend: Find out about team-building secrets for reducing turnover at Professional Team Building: "Unleashing the Power of Human Potential."

Incentives

Another main tactic of managers and business owners is to keep workers by providing incentives. An incentive, on a basic level, is anything that gives workers a reason to stay, be it a bonus, gift, or other type of benefit.

I recommend: Find out more about incentives (number five in this article) for battling turnover at Seven Secrets of Minimizing Agent Turnover.

Employee retention

Employee retention is a way of cutting down on turnover by keeping the workers that a business already has. There are numerous strategies for employee retention that fit into an overall program for making sure that turnover costs don't swamp a company.

I recommend: Find out more about tips for employee retention and turnover reduction at Top 7 Business.

Exit interview

Another big tool for reducing turnover is the exit interview. An exit interview is generally held between a departing worker and an HR staffer. The exit interview can clue the company in to why employees are leaving and what can be done to prevent more turnover in the future.

I recommend: Find out more about using an exit interview to help fix turnover problems from Exit Interviews.

360 feedback

In terms of combating turnover, another huge aspect is in feedback. Employees need feedback to know where they stand in their job roles, but a business also needs feedback from employees. To facilitate all of this communication, business leaders came up with what's called '360 feedback'-holistic communication for keeping a company healthy.

I recommend: Find out about 360 feedback and its roles in reducing turnover at 360 Feedback.