Last updated : May 19, 2025
Employee turnover can have a tremendous impact on the workplace. It wastes time, reduces productivity, and drains capital—the lifeblood of any business.
While there is no way to eliminate employee turnover completely, there are several proven methods to reduce it, saving you time and money, and increasing productivity in the process.
Hire with longevity in mind
It’s easy to fall into the trap of hiring someone to fill an immediate need, but avoid that. Instead, put in the time to find the right person for the job, not just someone who will do for now.
Job skills are important, but character and personality traits are even more important. You can always train people how to use a software program, operate a piece of equipment, or follow a procedure, but it’s far more difficult to teach integrity, work ethic, or how to fit into your organization’s culture.
Think of the hiring process like dating. You want to learn about someone before you get married, right? The same applies here.
Here are a few steps you should take to make sure a candidate is a good fit for your company:
- conduct a series of thorough interviews
- check their references
- conduct a background check
- look them up on social media
- conduct a drug test
- bring them in to meet their potential coworkers
Invest in your employees
Organizations that invest in employee development enjoy higher employee satisfaction. This leads to lower turnover because they have little reason to look for greener pastures elsewhere.
This might include continuing education, specialized training, or even company time and resources set aside for employees to work on personal projects that benefit the company. Google implemented a program like this with their engineers, which they called 20 percent time. From this program, Gmail, Google News and even the Google shuttle buses that bring people to work at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View were developed.
Communicate more
When you communicate with your employees, they have a better sense of what’s going on and they feel more like a valued and trusted part of the team. They’re also more likely to come to you to express their concerns rather than simply packing up and leaving.
Recognize your employees
Even the quietest, most humble people appreciate being recognized for their accomplishments because it let’s them know their effort is appreciated. In order to be effective, it recognition needs to be authentic, specific, and in most cases, public.
Set realistic expectations
We all understand that sometimes you have to burn the candle at both ends, but if that’s a typical day at your company, your employees are going to get burned out, and will eventually leave.
Balance is the key.
People have lives outside of work, so it’s unfair to expect them to make work their #1 priority all the time. Things come up; kids events, family emergencies, vacations, etc., so it’s important to set realistic expectations to accommodate the chaos that life throws at all of us.
