Too much turnover
So you’ve read in my diary in the HumanResources magazine that we’ve got a problem with turnover.
I’ve done some HR metrics and discovered that of the new employees we’ve hired in the last year within our Funky Town retail stores, 40% of them have left within 6 months. That’s 40 employees out of 100. Of the 40%, 5 of them had been hired into full time roles, 22 into part time roles and the rest into casual roles. Half the roles were in Auckland and the others were spread throughout NZ.
And yes I know a casual is not supposed to have on going hours, but in our retail stores sometimes they do. We review all our casuals every 6 months to check whether they have actually become a part time role and then offer them the option.
I’ve talked to a couple of Regional managers about this and they say that not everyone is suited to retail. But our recruitment process is supposed to assess that!
How do we recruit?
At the moment we advertise in the store window and on SEEK, or sometimes in the local paper in small towns. The applications come through to me so I can email or text the candidate and let them know we’re received their application.
I then send a shortlist through to the Store Managers who does interviews with a set of standard interview questions. The Manager then sends back the preferred candidates to us and I do reference checks (as we don’t want our Store Managers off the shop floor for too long) and credit checks.
This is costing us a lot of money for further recruitment and retraining. So what do I do?
Post your advice as a comment below. In the June issue of the HumanResources magazine we’ll publish the best answers and see what Flora does.
Dear Flora
This is not a quick and easy fix. Sure your regional managers have suggested that there is an issue with fit and so you are correctly questioning your recruitment process. There is some thing that your recruitment process does not filter. But this level of attrition may have to do with more than recruitment so neither should you rush to dismantle your processes in a hurry without having done some serious soul searching
I suggest a three pronged approach –
Firstly, investigate reasons for staff leaving – you may want to contact the recently departed employees yourself to get to the answers – is it due to reasons related to lack of skills or was it fit with the company or manager?
You may also want to feedback from them about your onboarding process – is there enough training at the outset to help settle a new comer?
Secondly, you will also want to get a clearer understanding from your regional managers of what qualities ensure a good fit into retail
Finally, are your hiring managers trained in interviewing techniques?
The answers to the above questions will let you move to your next step which could be some combination of:
Clarifying selection criteria
Improving on boarding processes
and upskilling hiring managers
Hope this helps
Hi Flora,
It made sense for me to share some of my thoughts on my blog where I open discuss HR matters in regards to Social Business. I have added comments about reducing your staff attrition rate, through more connected and engaged employees. Here is a link: http://vaughanrivett.co.nz/2012/04/09/reducing-staff-attrition-rates-through-connected-and-engaged-employees/
Hi Flora
It seems to me that employee engagement is not very high. Is your on-boarding process working? Do you do an annual engagement survey? if so, what are the results?
Measurement of your key HR metrics will hopefully make the picture a little clearer. Look for trends and read between the lines.
Although focused on employee health, this blog posts shows how you can measure various HR metrics for clues http://triscope.co.nz/workplace-health-measures
Good luck!