Written by It is, and has long been, a person’s right to end their employment subject to the correct legal procedures being followed. While many staff are crucial to a business’ success, and many have regarded themselves as indispensible in the past, it is rarely, if ever, the case that an established company stops trading due to the resignation of one person. A recent survey showed the rates of employee turnover for UK companies in 2008 and it has generated some interesting points for discussion.
The standard rate of employee turnover in the UK in 2008 was 15.7%. The figure is calculated as the number of staff who left a company during the year as a percentage of the total workforce number during the year. For example, if a company had an average workforce of 100 throughout 2008, then it might have assumed, on average, around fifteen members of staff to leave the company during the year. This may appear quite a high percentage but 2008 was a year of recession and the statistics are influenced by redundancies and reductions in workforce sizes. Redundancies obviously raise the numbers of staff leaving but when they and other leavers are not replaced then the average workforce size is less and this raises the percentage figure obtained using the formula highlighted above. The impact of these two topics on the overall figures becomes clear when one looks further into the survey results – 26% of companies in the UK made 10 or more employees redundant in 2008 and 30 per cent implemented a block on recruitment.
The impact of employees moving on] varies according to the amount of good quality replacements in the immediate area and the survey stresses this point by showing that turnover rates are highest where unemployment is low and it is easier for employees to secure alternative employment. The quality of the employees who leave is obviously a major issue, particularly if they move to a direct competitor or if they were in customer contact or Online Jobs and have been particularly popular with clients. In contrast, the business can benefit if an underperforming person chooses to leave and is replaced by someone who can produce increased Internet Business from the role.
Flexible working has been used as a means to manage potential staff problems since its official introduction in 2002. Permitting employees to work part-time, job-share or, if their jobs are suitable for it, to Work From Home, has enabled employers to retain some employees who might otherwise have had to resign if they experienced changes in their personal circumstances, such as a need to care for children or other dependents. Through the use of modern communication technology numerousroles can be converted to Online Jobs. Indeed, a modern Internet Business probably insists that its employees Work From Home as it will have been established to make the most of the latest communication technology and will be making cost savings in office space.
Businesses can help themselves to reduce the impact of employee turnover by making certain that their selection techniques are efficient enough to ensure that new employees will merge into the company well. Care must be taken to avoid the possible scenario where employees decide to leave within months of being employed due to employers issuing vague job specifications to applicants or implementing poor induction programmes for successful candidates.
