How Can Edge Technology Prevent Employee Turnover
Coming up with exact numbers on the cost of employee turnover is nearly impossible, but there is no doubt that it is high. It can have a significant impact on morale, not to mention putting strain on coworkers that have to do the missing employee’s job.
Most businesses will lose an employee here or there, but you also want to make sure one or two employees don’t quickly turn into eight or nine.
Like so many other aspects of business in the digital age, technology can help. Here are 5 ways technology can help prevent employee turnover.
1. Helps you get the right employees in the first place
In the past, employers have simply looked for the most qualified candidates they could find. This generally meant employees who had already done the same job or a similar one in the same type of business.
The theory being that if they did an adequate – or even stellar – job at another company, they could do the same for you.
The truth is, the right employee for your company is not necessarily the person with the best skill set. They also need to be a good fit for your corporate culture.
Some companies have a very clearly defined corporate culture and know exactly how to find employees who fit in well with it. Others, however, may be either unaware or less than realistic about what their company culture actually is.
In some cases, businesses may be looking for a “sharp, energetic, go-getter” when what they really need is a person who doesn’t make a move without being told what to do. The truth is we are more inclined to hire people we like rather than someone who is legitimately good at their job.
There is an overwhelming number of online assessments that can help you find the right employees for the job. From personality profiles to skills assessments, technology can help you get past your own biases to get the right person for the job.
2. Better onboarding and training
One of the biggest keys to employee retention is job satisfaction. When employees don’t feel they are adequately trained to do their jobs well, they may have a hard time deriving any sense of satisfaction from it.
What many businesses fail to understand is the purpose of training. Training is not so much about teaching your employees how to do their jobs as it is about communicating your expectations.
Having the skills to do a certain job is very different from knowing how you want that job done.
Employees don’t necessarily want to bother their supervisor every time they have a question. Oftentimes it’s because they don’t want to seem “high maintenance” or incapable of making a decision. In many cases, they may ask a coworker – who also never asked a supervisor when they had the same question.
This can lead to employees doing things wrong or a lack of uniformity in how things are handled, which in turn can lead to chaos and regular employee reprimands.
Technology can not only help provide better onboarding and training, but it can also help keep everyone on the same page when procedures change. With cloud storage, everyone has access to the same documents and SOP’s that are also easily searchable.
3. Better benefits
Technology is enabling more and more businesses to offer the kinds of benefits their employees really want: more flexible schedules and the ability to work remotely.
Technology helps remote workers feel more like they are a part of a team and less isolated. From project management apps that allow everyone to see the status of any task, project or series of projects to communication tools that help employees develop the same kinds of relationships they would working in an office, technology can help people remain connected even when working remotely.
It allows individuals to access a wide range of benefit information themselves, which can take a significant load off of busy HR departments or small business managers.
Automated systems can also be used for scheduling, which helps protect employees from being double-scheduled, scheduled when they are not available, when they were promised time off, or possibly worst of all, the dreaded “clopen” shifts.
4. Helps manage employees better
Much has been made of the idea that people leave managers, not companies. While there may certainly be some merit to this, in many cases, managers are not so much bad managers as much as just overwhelmed managers.
Sometimes, managers can end up so tied up dealing with difficult employees or putting out fires that stellar employees sometimes fly under the radar. In other cases, so much attention can be paid to “rockstar” employees, that good, solid, hard-working employees are also sometimes missed.
In many cases, this can lead to losing some of your best employees that you don’t find out were your best employees until it is too late.
Thankfully, technology can help you track when some employees might be due for a raise or promotion and have better insights to offer for performance reviews.
All-too-often performance reviews are more based solely on what a supervisor or manager thinks of an employee or sees them doing, when there is a lot they might miss.
The employee who is falling behind in their own work may be helping out a sick employee or working late hours that no one sees. Technology can help you “see” what is happening even when you are not around to witness it.
Thanks to the latest trends, wearable technology such as smart goggles can improve many aspects of management, such as mentorship. Important tasks can be sent through smart watches so employees can get the help they need and stay connected with the rest of the staff using wireless technology. As a side-note, if you are thinking of taking this direction, just prepare yourself for any questions that may arise regarding usability, security, privacy and health issues.
Final Thoughts
Losing even a single employee can be costly, particularly if they are a seasoned or tenured employee. In many cases, you may need to hire two or even three employees to do the work that one long-term veteran was doing. In other cases, poor management or other issues can cause an absolutely hemorrhage of employees.
Hiring new employees is time-consuming and expensive. You can save time, money, headaches and frustration by hiring the right employees in the first place, and keeping them.
- Follow Jasmine Williams on:
