The 5 Most Common Ways that Businesses Lose Employees

If you’re running a business, you probably have plenty on your mind. You may need some insurance policies that protect your customers and workers. You might need some additional funding, or you’re looking at some new store locations. Perhaps you need a new marketing campaign to catch the competition.

If you don’t have the employees you need, though, your business can’t function. Maybe you can automate certain processes, but you still need workers who know the industry and have dedication and resolve.

If you’re losing workers, that’s a serious problem you must fix quickly. Let’s discuss some ways companies lose their employees and how you can prevent that.

Injuries

Injuries cause many businesses' worker losses. You might have a situation where a worker hurts themselves in a car accident. PIP can cover 60% of your lost wages if you reside in one of the states that require it. That can help your injured worker till they get back on their feet, but you’ll be short-handed until then.

You might also have a situation where your worker injures themselves while in one of your store locations or one of your warehouses. They may slip and fall, or something might fall on them. They may trip over something.

When these injuries occur, you must use your insurance policies for worker protection, but you must also cover the work this employee normally did while they’re out. Maybe this worker can come back eventually, but perhaps they can never work at that same job again.

To prevent these injuries, you must maintain a safe workspace at your warehouses, brick-and-mortar stores, loading docks, etc. Make sure you don’t have slippery conditions, and there’s nothing lying around where someone might trip over it.

Illnesses

Illness can also sideline one of your workers. Covid-19 came into the world a few years ago, and it’s still out there, lurking. Even if someone gets a vaccine, they can still contract it. You also have a common cold and various other bugs and viruses working their way through the population.

If you have a sick worker, send them home. You don’t know what they have, and you don’t know whether they can spread it. If they’re coughing and sneezing, though, you should assume they’re contagious.

It’s not heroic if they remain at their desk. Tell them they must go home till they’re feeling better, or they might infect the other employees, and you may have your entire workforce out before long.

Make sure you give each employee plentiful paid sick days. This country does not require them as others do, but your workers will appreciate it, and they’ll show more company loyalty.

Also, recommend that your workers get the Covid-19 vaccine and boosters if they haven’t done that yet. These measures can save their lives, and they also ensure you get your workers back faster if they do contract the coronavirus.

Harassment

You may have a situation where you lose workers because someone in your company harasses them. When you hear the word “harassment” in a workplace setting, you might think about sexual harassment. That certainly qualifies, but other kinds exist as well.

Maybe you have a worker or workers who torment a certain employee because of their race, religion, gender, age, or for some other reason. They may make inappropriate comments or jokes when this person comes around. They may ask them personal questions that have no business in the workplace.

They may touch them or openly leer at them. They may ask them out repeatedly, even though this person has said no on several occasions.

Workers might quit if this keeps happening, but they may also sue your company. Even if you, the company’s owner, didn’t personally do anything, this former employee might say you allowed the harassment to go on.

To prevent these situations, tell all employees they must act respectfully toward everyone on staff. You should also have an HR department in place that thoroughly looks into every harassment claim.

This protects your workers and your company, but it also protects your reputation. You don’t want potential employees to hear that your business allows inappropriate behavior. If they hear that, they might not even bother applying the next time you must fill some open positions.  

Better Benefits Elsewhere

You might lose workers because they learn that a competing company has open positions, and they have better benefits as well. We already mentioned paid vacation days. You should offer those, and you should also provide paid training, a 401K program with employer matching, competitive wages, and perhaps even help with college tuition for anyone interested.

The better your benefits, the more you can retain your workers. If you show your employees that you genuinely care about them, they probably won’t leave, and they will also tell others they love working for you. So people also change industries opportunistically that offer better benefits e.g. the industries of investing, education, contract manufacturing, transportation/logistics, or publicity.

Micromanaging

As a company owner, you must hire the people you think will do the best job in each position. Once you do that, you can train them and make sure they’re behaving correctly. You can look over their shoulder for a while, but eventually, you must trust them at least a little bit.

You can certainly have a probationary period while someone’s learning the ropes, but once it seems like they’re on task, you must let them do their work without constantly hovering. You should trust your workers unless they prove they don’t deserve it.

Micromanaging might seem like a good idea, but it’s usually counterproductive. You can keep an eye on things in a general sense, but you must also stay in your lane. You have plenty to occupy you, and your workers probably feel the same way. If you’re constantly overseeing their every move, you do them a disservice.

Give your workers some space once you see they can function on their own. They’ll appreciate that. They can ask for assistance if they need it, but they can act autonomously if they don’t.