turnover Archives

Offering Child Care Benefits to Employees

by LizStevens | Jan 22, 2020 | Blog

Offering child care benefits to employees. Employers can address work-life balance and aid recruitment and retention efforts with child care benefits for employees.

Both parents are employed in more than 60 percent of American families, yet only 6 percent of companies offer child care benefits, according to research by Clutch.

Another study, by New America’s Better Life Lab and Care.com, found that the average annual cost of full-time center-based child care ($9,589) is more expensive than in-state college tuition ($9,410). (And, both costs are rising smartly above the rate of inflation.)

Employers are expanding family-friendly employee benefits to improve work-life balance as well as bolster retention and recruitment efforts and employer-paid child care benefits are a trend to watch in 2020.

The Rising Cost of Child Care

Research by Freddie Mac found the price of child care, adjusted for inflation, has increased by more than 45 percent over the last 25 years and it impacts a family’s ability to afford a home.

“One of the major challenges, when it comes to affording a home, is the high cost of child care. Our analysis finds that those families paying for child care generally are left with less money for housing. Specifically, we find they, on average, pay about half of the median mortgage payment and nearly eighty percent of the median rent,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist.

The average family spent more than 10 percent of their annual income on child care in 2011. In lower-income families, the cost burden of child care is much higher. Families making less than $1,500 a month with children under the age of 15 spent 40 percent of their income on child care, on average.

Offering Child Care Benefits to Employees

New parent benefits have seen significant growth over the past five years, but child care benefits have failed to keep pace. According to research by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM):

25 percent of employers let employees bring children to work in an emergency
11 percent of employers have a child care referral service
4 percent of employers offer subsidized or nonsubsidized child care centers or programs

As an emerging trend, there isn’t a wealth of data on the ROI of child care benefits, but initial research published in the Journal of Management found companies that introduced child care benefits had lower collective turnover rates for female employees in subsequent years.

In the next few years, we expect to see the number of companies offering child care benefits rise as employers battle for top talent with better benefits.

How to Retain Hourly Employees

by LizStevens | May 28, 2019 | Blog

How to retain hourly employees. Research by Shiftboard uncovered what matters most to these workers to help you improve job satisfaction and reduce hourly worker turnover.

Half of hourly employees would take a pay cut for more control over their schedule or better health benefits, according to recent research by Shiftboard.

“There are nearly 82 million hourly workers in the U.S., and they make up more than half of the American workforce,” said Steve O’Brian, Vice President of Marketing at Shiftboard. “Nearly every sector of the U.S. economy is struggling to find and retain workers. Employers can leverage this report to better understand how to attract, motivate and retain hourly workers.”

Hourly Workers Want Work-Life Balance

Close to 80 percent of hourly workers agreed that work-life balance was necessary for job satisfaction. Almost 90 percent said it’s extremely important to have control over the days and times they are expected to work. Hourly workers aren’t looking to conform to a standard 40-hour work week, instead, they prefer to have the option to:

Work longer days to have more days off between scheduled shifts (89%)
Work a set number of hours without overtime being a requirement (78%)
Work more hours for more pay, as long as it’s not required (88%)

Exploring scheduling options that give hourly employees more control is a strategy that could potentially reduce turnover.

Pay Cuts for Better Health Benefits

More than half of hourly workers would be willing to take a reasonable pay cut for better health benefits. High out-of-pocket costs for healthcare have led to financial toxicity, which happens when Americans skip medications that could improve their quality of life because they can’t afford them. More than 40 percent of Americans don’t see a physician when they are sick or injured because of high healthcare costs.

Working with health benefits brokers to reduce out-of-pocket healthcare costs for hourly employees could be advantageous for employers aiming to boost retention for hourly employees.

Hourly Workers Want to Find Meaning in Work

Nearly 90 percent of hourly workers believe making a significant contribution to the success of their company is important to job satisfaction. More than 80 percent believe it’s important to receive joy from work and agree that feeling challenged at work is important for job satisfaction. An overwhelming majority of hourly workers believe having career growth opportunities is important for job satisfaction.

How to Retain Hourly Workers

“We’re finding that wages are only part of the equation. Employers need to look beyond obvious factors to effectively increase satisfaction and retention for today’s hourly employees,” said O’Brian.

Finding solutions that allow hourly workers more flexibility, developing more comprehensive health benefits, and communicating their value to the success of the company are three ways employers can improve retention for hourly employees.

More On Retention and Job Satisfaction

How Do You Improve Employee Retention?

What Do Employees Worry About?

Open Offices Are Trendy, But Are They Effective?

What You Need to Know About Employee Burnout

Are Employees Who Work From Home Happier?

How Do You Handle Management Issues?

2 Simple Strategies to Improve Office Culture

How Do You Improve Employee Retention?

by LizStevens | Oct 30, 2018 | Blog

If you want to know how to improve employee retention, you need to know why employees quit and Work Institute’s exit interview gives you a great place to start.

The vast majority of employees who quit could have been retained, according to Work Institute which conducted over 234,000 exit interviews.

Roughly 30 percent of employees will leave their jobs in 2018 to work somewhere else. “Employee turnover is anticipated to hit record highs and cost U.S. companies more than $600 billion in 2018,” Danny Nelms, President of Work Institute, writes in his introduction.

From 2009 to 2017 the unemployed persons to jobs ratio fell from 7:1 to 1:1. The national average for open jobs has seen an inconceivable 141 percent increase since 2009. Work Institute expects the number of employees leaving their jobs to increase as involuntary turnover will continue to decline (by 25 percent over the next two years).

Why Do Employees Leave?

A lack of career development was the most common reason employees left their jobs in 2017 (for the eighth consecutive year). More than 30 percent left their jobs because of the type of work, either because they wanted to change industries and do something different or because they found a better opportunity. Over 20 percent left their jobs because there wasn’t a chance to acquire new skills, or because promotion and advancement didn’t seem possible. Almost 20 percent left their jobs to go back to school and advance their careers, or because it was too overwhelming to balance work and school.

More than 10 percent of employees quit because of a poor work-life balance regarding their company’s schedule, commute, flexibility or travel. In their explanations for their responses employees said their employer lacked flexibility for new parents or those dealing with a family emergency, had them travel too frequently, wouldn’t allow them to switch shifts, or they found a job with an easier commute.

Manager behavior was another main driver for turnover, primarily, for 35 percent of employees a managers unprofessionalism was enough to drive them away. For almost 20 percent it was a lack of support or poor employee treatment. Management behavior that employees took issue with included: supervisors using inappropriate language, yelling at them in public, failing to stand up for their team with upper management, communicating poorly, uppermanagement staff that was either hostile or overly friendly with one another, favoritism and inconsistency in management practices.

Workers also left for their jobs in favor of their own well-being, citing personal issues, life challenges or medical issues. Or because of compensation and benefits, for example, one worker said they left because they had been with the company for 8 years without a single raise.

Other workers left because of unfavorable job characteristics, like being overloaded or underscheduled. And finally, six percent of employees left because of the work environment, most commonly because of problematic co-workers or an unfavorable culture.

What Can Employers Do to Retain Employees?

Employers can use the information from Work Institute’s report to target areas of their organizations that could be contributing to the main drivers of turnover, but they’ll have to evaluate which categories are most applicable to their business. Work Institute notes that each organization has its own unique drivers for turnover, for example, one company loses employees mostly due to relocation and retirement while another company loses them because of job characteristics or compensation and benefits.

New employees accounted for 40 percent of turnover in 2017, almost a 20 percent hike from 2016, giving an area for most businesses to target for improvement. An effective onboarding process has to be a priority for companies looking to reduce turnover. Schedule, compensation and type of work were the top three reasons employees left in the first year. Setting up realistic expectations in the interview and the onboarding process can help improve new hire retention.

How High is Work-Related Stress and What’s Causing it?

by LizStevens | Sep 19, 2018 | Blog

Almost all employees are affected by work-related stress and a new study gives some insight into how high work-related stress is, what causes it, events that make it worse and what employers can do to improve productivity and retention.

Work-related stress affects 94 percent of employees and almost a third of them experience “high” or “unsustainably high” stress, according to a new study by Wrike. Nearly 50 percent of employees said workplace stress makes them “check out.” “Checking out” is estimated to cost US companies $450 to $550 billion in lost productivity annually.

Over 25 percent of employees said they will burn out in the next 12 months if they can’t reduce their stress levels. More than 50 percent have searched for a new job due to stress at work. Almost half of staff turnover is caused by employee burnout and recruiting costs US companies roughly $160 billion a year.

Employees are taking their work-stress home with them. More than 50 percent said work-related stress has had a negative effect on their home life at least once a week. For 10 percent of employees, work-related stress has affected their home life almost every day. Work-related stress caused more than 50 percent of employees to lose sleep.

What’s stressing so many employees out? Poor communication was the top stressor for employees at companies both small and large. It was followed by team members not pulling their weight on projects, though smaller organizations were equally stressed about being overloaded. Bottlenecks, waiting for others to take action, was one of the top stressors for almost 30 percent of employees at companies small and large.

Receiving assignments with unrealistic deadlines were events that had the highest impact on employee stress levels. The second greatest stress inducer was being unable to locate information employees know they’ve seen in the past. For some, too much time spent in meetings meant that they don’t have enough time to do actual work.

Wrike’s study assesses the severity of employee stress and its main drivers. Employers can start to lessen the high levels of stress employees experience by improving communication, adjusting workloads, reviewing information systems and reigning in time spent in meetings.

It could also be advantageous for employers to look into stress management program offerings as an employee benefit. Close to 20 percent of employees said they’ve sought professional help with stress management and if it’s something that’s included in their benefits package that number could be even higher. Investing in the well-being of employees can differentiate an employer and help reduce profits lost to productivity and turnover each year.