According to Consero’s 2024 data, attracting and retaining talent are one of the top challenges for investor-backed CFOs. Employee turnover is natural for any business, but certainly feels more common in the finance department at growing companies.
For lean teams, losing a key F&A team member can disrupt the entire department, and means hiring, onboarding, and training expensive new financial talent. While turnover will always exist, there are several ways you can reduce turnover in your finance department to minimize these scenarios.
1. Hiring the right people for the job
One of the essential ways of reducing turnover and keeping the existing workforce that’s both effective and fits into your company’s system is to hire the right people for the positions correctly. Hiring the right people is essential, and if the current workforce is not productive, then turnover is not such a bad thing.
However, you should make sure that you hire the right people in the first place to avoid the problems that come with a later turnover.
Now, it’s all well said but how can you make sure you are hiring the right finance & accounting talent? How do you determine who the right people are for each role?
There are two things to consider:
- The employee first and foremost has to have the right skill set to fit into the position you’re offering.
- You have to make sure that the employee understands and fits into the company’s culture and how everything operates.
The skillset is one thing but getting them to match the culture of the company is entirely different and sometimes hard to accomplish. Make sure you:
Ask the employee behavioral types of interview questions to see how they react and determine if they are the right people for your business.
- Show them the office, take them around to see how it all looks to them. If it doesn’t fit, they will most likely refuse the job by themselves.
- All of this is crucial because employees who do not fit will feel lonely and they will be less productive. Such employees are bound to leave and take their expertise somewhere else.
2. Increasing engagement
Engagement at the workplace is one of the main factors that keep employee turnover down and keeps both productivity and happiness at the office high. Hiring the right people for the job is one thing, but you also have to keep them engaged and thus determined to stay with your company.
In the last few years, many companies have noted that engagement is increasing, which makes employees less in need of changing their job. Some 60% of US CFOs have stated that employee engagement has improved, which is undoubtedly an unusually high number.
However, there’s still place for improvement, and many companies and their CFOs don’t have much faith in the engagement level of their employees. It’s also tough to be sure that the turnover will remain down. Which is why it’s always preferable to make sure you keep those engagement levels high enough.
It is accomplished in several ways:
- Create a clear career path that employees can follow if they want to advance. They’ll have a lot more motivation if they know the method needed to climb up the corporate ladder.
- Give perks to your employees and make sure they know how to obtain them.
- Precisely define the vision for your company and convey it to the workforce.
- Combine team-building with work.
- Learn about your employees, be invested in them as your staff and as regular people.
3. Giving feedback and praise often
Employees need feedback in their work because they need to feel like they are contributing. No employee wants to be a mere number in the overall company structure; they want to feel valued.
By giving them feedback and praise when they deserve it, you’ll make sure to keep them happy and satisfied. You’ll also ensure that there is a real reason for performing at a high level.
In the end, reducing turnover will always come down to how happy your employees are.
4. Giving good salaries and benefits
Good pay and benefits are prerequisites to keeping your employees contented and wanting to stay with your company for the long run.
Naturally, this is not always easy to accomplish. Many companies want to make enough profit as well, and that sometimes comes in direct opposition to the salaries of employees.
For that reason, many companies turn to outsource, because it’s cheaper and more cost effective.
However, if you want to keep your current set of employees and reduce turnover, you’ll have to offer better salaries and benefits. If these are not competitive enough, much of your workforce will start looking for another job.
There are several things that you need to achieve:
- The pay has to cover all the standard expenses your employees have, keeping in mind their status in society and average salaries for the position in their location.
- The pay also has to be able to cover extras as people need to have enough cash to include some extra perks.
- Offer benefits such as profit sharing or pension programs.
5. Flexible schedules
This last method is often not easy, and it doesn’t have to implement fully. However, whenever you have the option, offer flexible work schedules for your employees.
Flexible schedules don’t say that profits will plummet. And it certainly doesn’t mean that making your employees work more extended hours will increase productivity. It’s one of the many myths about productivity.
By creating flexibility, you’ll allow the employees to fully adjust to the work schedule and organize the work-life balance that will keep them happy.
So, remember – keep the employees happy and fulfilled at their job, and allow them quality time off for their home-life. Turnover will inevitably decrease.
