Episode 37

full
Published on:

5th Jul 2023

Small to Mid-Sized Organizations Can't Afford to Ignore Employee Turnover

**Summary:**

Dr. Jim emphasizes the importance of employee retention for small to midsize organizations. He highlights the financial impact of turnover, the loss of institutional knowledge, and the negative effects on employee morale and brand reputation. Dr. Jim urges organizations to focus on building a culture of open communication and empowerment to retain their best people and become elite organizations.

Timestamp

[0:00:00] Introduction to the importance of employee retention for small to midsize organizations

[0:00:50] The high cost of turnover and its impact on initiatives

[0:01:43] The ripple effect of losing critical employees and institutional knowledge

[0:02:50] Negative impact on employee morale and team stability

[0:03:30] Cascading effect of losing highly valued employees

Transcript

Why is Employee Retention More Important for Small HR Teams?

Dr. Jim: [:

That's especially important for small to mid-size organizations. To consider because you can't absorb attrition the same way a 10,000 person organization can. You lose five of your best people tomorrow? You're gonna be in a world of hurt. And whatever systems or processes that you had in place are likely to be thrown into chaos because those people have left.

If you're not focusing on the things that you need to focus on to make sure that your people stay. You're setting yourself up for a lot of problems, and that's why employee retention should be a critical focus for small to midsize organizations.

eaves your organization, you [:

So multiply that by each instance. Of attrition and you have a financial impact that is going to put any of your initiatives into chaos, and that's gonna be something that is especially critical to conserve if you're in a small to midsize organization. When you're thinking about why there should be a focus on employee retention, the cost alone should be something that keeps you focused.

Think about the day-to-day, small to mid-size organization has to deal with. You're building the organization that you want to be as you go. So every single person on your team is critically important, and the reality of it is that everybody is so busy that not everything is gonna get written down and documented.

ems, customers, all of those [:

You're building as you go. Everything is a sprint. You need your people dialed in and locked in into the strategic vision mission, values. And you need everybody firing on all cylinders. You lose three of your best people or two of your best people, or even one really good person from one of the teams.

What happens to your employee morale? Your team is gonna feel it. There's gonna be a sense of instability and anxiety that they're gonna encounter. They're gonna wonder what's up. There's gonna be a period where everybody is less productive and it can create a cascading effect.

If one of the people is highly valued in the organization and they leave, they're gonna. To take some people with that, and this is before you start thinking about the brand reputation that you have in the marketplace. When you look at consistent pattern of attrition, that's gonna have some negative impact on your brand, and that's gonna impact how your customers perceive you.

Your future [:

If you're a small to midsize organization and you're not extremely focused, On retaining your employees, you're going to be setting yourself up for a lot of problems down the road. Don't take your eye off the ball and think turnover is something that you can ignore. It's not, and if you do, it's gonna cost you.

You cannot become an elite organization if your best people are just walking out the door every single day, and that is why it's critical for you to build a culture that has open communication, but more importantly, is a culture where your managers are empowered, your employees are engaged because those two factors combined are gonna help you build an elite organization.

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About the Podcast

Engaging Leadership
Engaging Leaders to Build High Performance Teams
How do you build a high-performance team?
That question occupies the minds of most leaders.

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About your hosts

CheeTung Leong

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I'm committed to helping people live their best lives through work.

I'm one of the co-founders of EngageRocket, an HRTech SaaS startup and we are focused on helping organizations build empowered managers, engaged employees, and elite teams.

I'm a big nerd when it comes to economics and psychology and regularly use data and tech to help folks live their best lives.

I've been recognized by Prestige Magazine as one of the top 40 under 40 business leaders and have been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, Business Insider, and Tech in Asia.

Jim Kanichirayil

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Your friendly neighborhood talent strategy nerd is the producer and co-host for The HR Impact Show. He's spent his career in sales and has been typically in startup b2b HRTech and TA-Tech organizations.

He's built high-performance sales teams throughout his career and is passionate about all things employee life cycle and especially employee retention and turnover.