How Important is HR in Maintaining a Low Turnover Rate?

It has long been said that people don’t work for companies but individuals. That’s the first thing that all companies should remember.  HR plays a very important role in helping organizations maintain their top talent.  Any HR professional worth their weight in gold is very aware of high turnover of staff within company departments and the organization and interjects immediately to determine how to get the organization back on track.

It starts with providing a safe environment for everyone within the organization to turn to.  HR is the stability for any organization.  Managers and supervisors partnering with HR eliminates potential situations that can go on way to long before being addressed.  Most individuals want to be heard and acknowledged and when that doesn’t happen over a period of time they start to disengage from the environment.

HR gives an outside prospective and when done correctly sees the bigger picture of a win, win situation for both the employee and the company.  That includes regular contact with personnel and not just when something is going wrong.  When HR is a part of the day to day interaction then there isn’t this feeling of something bad is going to happen when they show up.  Managers and supervisors see this as help and coaching/counseling is readily accepted.

The key is finding out what keeps employees engaged and this should happen before they are ready to go to another company or even the competition.  The most effective way that I have been able to coach managers and supervisors is by conducting stay interviews.  We commonly conduct exit interviews to determine why an individual is leaving the company but if you think about it an exit interview is way to late.  It’s after the fact.  Your top talent is leaving because some expectation was not met.

Stay interviews find out what keeps the employees engaged. As a manager and supervisor this is helpful because you know what’s important to the employee.   It also tells them that they are important and you want to hear from them.  It builds relationships within the organization that is necessary for expansion of the company and the growth of the employee.

So instead of finding out why they leave during an exit interview. Find out why they stay and keep your top performers.