MarketPlace

Communicate effectively to stem costly mass employee exits

employees

Demoralised employees may not be productive at work. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH

Eighty per cent of employed Kenyans plan to leave their current jobs within the next one year influenced by a better pay, career progression and a quality work environment, among other reasons, according to the latest Job market report by TIFA Research Limited and Brighter Monday.

Such a high potential employee turnover could prove costly to companies as they seek to replace them emphasising the importance of internal marketing in an organisation in a bid to motivate and retain employees.

“Only two per cent are not considering leaving their current jobs while 18 per cent intend to leave in the next two to five years. The study shows that most are leaving for professional reasons whereas a small proportion is having conflicts at the workplace,” reported TIFA Research and Brighter Monday.

Indeed, office conflicts can impact employees’ engagement and productivity. In a work environment where mutual influence is non-existent and employee feedback is considered illogical by their managers will eventually lead to them searching for other jobs.

However, in a work environment with improved internal communication, employees feel valued and retention is high. In fact, research by employee experience platform Staffbase shows that effective internal communication helps enrich employees’ lives and leads to a 40 per cent increase in customer satisfaction, a 30 per cent increase in profitability, and a 36 per cent increase in the overall performance of the company.

“The manager has to commit in solving the issues raised by the employees, especially the soft ones. The employee engagement level for those that want to leave their current jobs, is at 27 per cent and most of the time those looking for another job it is because of salary but if they feel that the work environment is good they can stay on a bit longer and tolerate the low salary.

“This can only happen by making the employee feel comfortable, which can be done through communication,” said Maggie Ireri, chief executive, TIFA Research.

“It has to be communication with action meaning the manager deals with the issues, but if they are not solved in three or six months down the line, the employee will still be unhappy and eventually leave.

“Recruiting new staff is costly for companies. They have to re-advertise the position, interview candidates, train them and there is the risk that those hired may not leave up to expectations thus they are let go and the recruitment process is repeated.”

According to research conducted on the cost of high employee turnover in the hospitality industry by Cornell University, US, the costs of turnover were generally higher for complex jobs and that the damage to productivity caused by the inexperience of new employees is the greatest contributor to the overall costs of turnover.

“The range of cost due to lost productivity was 47.1 per cent to 67.6 per cent of the total costs of turnover. It was the highest item among all of the costs associated with turnover. The findings also showed that companies spent considerably more as a percentage of the total turnover cost on selection for low complexity jobs than for high complexity jobs; 25.8 per cent versus 9.6 per cent,” reported Cornell University.

“The labour pool for high-level jobs is smaller than that of low-skill jobs, but the high-level pool contains proportionately more qualified applicants. Consistent with expectations, the low complexity jobs had lower cost of lost productivity than did the high-skill jobs — 55.2 per cent versus 67.6 per cent.

We also found that the overall turnover costs were lower when both supervisors and peers spent considerable time on the interviewing process. These findings suggest that the failure to use rigorous and comprehensive selection procedures may be a key contributor to the turnover problem.”

- African Laughter