Outsourced Exit Interviews, Stay Surveys, Leadership Assessments and so much more.
Retail’s very high turnover rate is no secret, but some companies only now seem to be realizing how much it’s costing them. Walmart, America’s largest employer, spends an estimated $1 billion annually just replacing the 60 percent of entry-level employees it loses in a year. One might expect the cost to replace entry-level employees to be significantly less than more senior employees, but census data has shown this is simply not the case. How can companies minimize these costs? The enterprise HR executive has a number of levers to pull to chip away at turnover. One of the most potentially effective is re-evaluating the exit interview process. When adjusting wages is outside of an HR executive’s control, or too risky, a close look at the exit interview can reveal opportunities to improve. Here are five keys to making sure your exit interviews give you the information you need to take the edge off your retail turnover costs: Standardize: Maintaining a standard for interview delivery across an entire retail organization can be exceptionally difficult without outside help. But without a reasonable expectation for consistently administered interviews, there is no point in trying to derive knowledge from whatever data your team actually gets. Resist special treatment for different segments: Along the same lines, professionals inside and outside your team may want to use different questioning for different levels within the organization. HSD Metrics has found, time and time again, that level of seniority has little bearing on the way respondents answer questions. A single set of exit interview questions for all employees is easier to administer and easier to analyze – and you can still see how the reasons for leaving vary between senior, junior and even part-time staff. Emphasize anonymity: Especially in the retail industry, many part-time employees intend to rejoin the company during the next holiday season. These employees will be as anxious as anyone to avoid burning bridges, so they need to know with absolute certainty that their answers will not be personally identifiable. Make surveys as short as possible: Retail ex-employees are among the most difficult to pin down for an exit interview. Separate your must-have information from nice-to-have information, offer multiple interview-taking formats (like phone, web and email) and ensure that each format is optimized for completion. Let a new set of eyes review your data: If you’re one of the lucky ones with reliable data, at least consider sharing your information with someone you trust (or someone willing to sign an NDA). It’s amazing what jumps off the page to people who aren’t looking at the same numbers every month, and retail exit interview data is no exception. If you need help refining your exit interview process, or would rather see the entire process put in the hands of experts, contact the team at HSD Metrics about the ExitRight® service. Our team can take the guesswork and tedium out of your exit interview process so you can focus on the insights that will help you make better HR decisions. We can give you a cost estimate based on the number of exits at your organization each month contact us online or call us at 877-439-9315 to learn more.
How do the hidden costs of an exit interview affect your turnover bottom line? Turnover itself is an enormous expense – one of the biggest in dozens upon dozens of industries, and often far more than necessary. But even independent of the big-picture issues that affect your retention rates, the way you conduct exit interviews themselves can play a huge part in the way your turnover – and business – functions over time.
Here are a few big reasons that come to mind, and some ideas of how you can work against these inherent obstacles: Time: Time really is money, and the time of your organization’s HR team is as valuable as anyone’s. The more HR professionals in your organization function as culture strategists and leaders, the more their time is wasted by process inefficiencies and obsolete or useless question sequences. If your organization trusts its HR talent, you’ll want to do everything you can to empower those individuals to effect change at a 30,000-foot view – not in the trenches with employees who already have a foot out the door. To get ahead of the time curve, you can simplify your exit process (potentially at the cost of the insights you can obtain) and focus more time on outgoing values employees, as opposed to “favorable exits.” Outsourcing exit interviews to a specialized, third-party provider can give your HR team a wealth of time back, not to mention provide them with the critical metrics to make informed high-level decisions. Attrition: Especially in smaller businesses where non-HR personnel are involved in the exit interview process, exit interviews can take a toll on morale when they begin to pile up. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in statistics to notice turnover trends, and those issues become amplified the more the exit interview process is physically a part of the workplace. The intuitive remedy to this issue is to take the interview out of the workplace. Blind spots: The underlying problems at the heart of your turnover situation give you all the reason you need to persist with exit interviews. But sometimes the underlying problems are sensitive or aren’t details employees want to address while still waiting on a final paycheck. Some programs, such as our ExitRight® software, give HR teams the special capability of administering exit interviews independently and after an employee’s last day, thereby giving them the confidence that their answers are confidential and safe from repercussions. We’re here to help you sort out the best way to the most efficient and productive way to conduct exits at your organization. For more help paring down your exit interview process without losing the valuable insights, you need to increase retention in the long-run, contact the turnover experts at HSD Metrics.
Hiring skilled healthcare talent is only half the battle – getting them to stay on your staff is just as important. High turnover is expensive; the average cost for losing a bedside nurse ranges from $44,380 to $63,400, effectively doubling the annual cost of each new employee! Not only is it financially costly to your healthcare business, but as turnover rates increase, quality of patient care decreases and more stress is put on employees. In a field where workers put others’ well-being before their own, what’s being done to retain the best employees? Here are some fundamental retention strategies for healthcare:
1. Figure out why turnover is so high: Do you have an effective means of getting to the real reasons why personnel are leaving? Anonymously surveying newly hired, tenured, and recent ex-employees is a fair way to show your employees their voices are being heard, as well as get to the heart of any underlying problems – like discomfort speaking out about shift managers or high-level physicians. 2. Create an environment for growth: Nearly a quarter of healthcare workers have left a job because they feel there was a lack of upward mobility and career progress (per CareerBuilder). Offer your employees, especially the standouts, unique opportunities for growth and development. You’re showing them you care about their future and, and you’ll be doing everything in your power (and budget) to keep them on your team. We’ve found that the investment is almost always well worth it. 3. Give your staff the support they need to get the job done well: A major issue in the healthcare industry is the worsening caregiver-to-patient ratio. Healthcare workers are already under so much stress—not providing them with enough resources or other staff is only going to hurt employees or patients. Do your best to keep your workforce balanced to avoid staff from getting overworked and burned out. 4. Have adequate management, training, and mentorship at every healthcare facility: Having communicative management, mentors, and a training program in place at your organization will help employees feel they were properly transitioned into their new job, and that they have an effective support system for guidance and feedback. 5. Whenever possible, find the best fit – not just another body: Many hiring departments feel like they’re under immense pressure to fill positions at all costs. You can stress the importance of culture until you’re blue in the face, but what’s the best way to show you’re practicing what you preach? Investing in HR analytics (in addition to organizational culture) can help you close the loop between setting work culture goals and efficiently finding the right people to establish said culture. Retention in healthcare can be tricky, and the difference between strong and mediocre turnover management could be millions of dollars back in your team’s pocket. When you’re ready to bring analytical insight to your retention practice, contact the healthcare retention experts at HSD Metrics. With decades of experience working with clients in the healthcare industry, we can look at your situation in ways that may surprise you!
Automating exit interviews is one of the best steps you can take to add efficiency and insight to your human resource management – and in more and more industries, it’s an absolute must to keep up with the competition. But what does it take to get started?
Many of our new clients are surprised to hear that we may actually get them fully operational with one month. It takes buy-in and cooperation from the client, but it’s not unusual. So what can you do to help us get your program off the ground in one month? Schedule a consultation – day 1: Your first order of business is to pick up the phone and get in touch with our team. We’ll walk you through the transition process and give you action items specific to your industry, employee count, location(s), and any other special aspects that could influence your goals and setup. Gather your existing resources – week 1: All the questions you’ve used and the common answers you’ve received will help you refine the types of things you’ll be looking for with your new system. If you’re just getting started with formal exit interviews altogether, that’s okay – but you may want to put a little thought into trends you’ve intuitively picked up on over the course of your time managing retention for your organization. Any information can help our team and your team focus efforts on the most productive and practical system. Finalize objectives – week 2: What are your reasons for automating exit interviews at your company? There are plenty of valid reasons, but your particular reasons will influence your questions, methods and reporting priorities. If you’re in charge of changing your interview process but haven’t given a whole lot of thought to what you’re looking to accomplish, consider setting some SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. It’s best to set these goals with your HSD Metrics partner before you get too far down the implementation path. Choose your collection method – week 2: HSD Metrics offers phone interviews, web interviews, and paper/mail interviews. We can work with one medium exclusively or with a combination of methods. Since our team manages the process on our end, you probably won’t notice a difference in terms of manageability on your end. However, you may want to think about what methods your exiting employees may be most likely to use. If you’re not sure, we can offer some advice based on our experience working with clients in your industry. Prepare your HR staff – week 3: Our software requires no training, but you will want to make sure all parties know how to initiate a new interview. You may also want to devote some resources to senior HR and management personnel to help them get acclimated to quickly interpret trends based on our results. Even if your transition operation isn’t firing on all cylinders, we believe a month is a realistic timeline to automating exit interviews in a wide variety of organizations. Ready to get started with automated exit interviews for your organization? Contact our team at HSD Metrics today.
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