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Employee Retention - What Are Your Employees Worth?

Dan Thorne • Sep 10, 2021

If you’re the head of your organization, keeping your employees happy and engaged leads to higher retention.


Social service organizations, like other healthcare firms, cannot afford high turnover. Not only does the turnstile of unhappy employees create higher levels of anxiety and stress for those remaining, there’s also a cost factor. Some organizations take it seriously, identifying the causes of employees leaving, while others shrug their shoulders and say, “It’s the nature of the business.”


If you’re the one who’s counting the dollars and cents, it helps to look at the financial drain on your organization if you have high turnover.

An article by Christina Merhar on the website PeopleKeep outlined “The Real Cost of Losing an Employee.” In it, she talks about the how satisfied employees help organizations to thrive. But that “voluntary turnover has a negative impact on employee morale, productivity, and company revenue.” This is because finding new employees requires a great deal of effort.


Merhar also discusses where the costs for hiring go:


Recruiting - the time it takes to run an ad, either in the paper or online, or find a recruiter to help. Then the countless resumes, interviews, second and third interviews. Not to mention background checks, references. And then agreeing on a salary (if what you offer is agreeable to the candidate). Especially in today’s labor market where unemployment is low, candidates can afford to compare offers and hold out for a better salary. It’s definitely a “candidate’s market”, not an employer’s.


Training- there is the time which is required to help employees learn all that is needed. The orientation to the organization, the policies, their department, their job and duties. And then there is shadowing which may be required as they learn the ropes from others. Not to mention ongoing training and re-training. Businesses invest 10-20% in training, and in many social service organizations, it’s more because of contractual requirements (evidenced based practices, special programs).


Lost productivity- thinking about the amount of time it takes an employee to reach the level of productivity of an existing person. Depending upon the job, it takes an average of 6 months for an employee to feel they’ve got the job understood.


Lost engagement - other employees are influenced by those who leave. They tend to lose interest, be less involved, and this lack of engagement leads to less productivity Especially in jobs where teams are involved, because the employee doesn’t feel they have a “go-to” person they can trust.


Back to the costs.


According to the website Enrich, when a business replaces a salaried employee, that costs between 6 to 9 months of salary. If a manager or supervisor makes $60,000 per year,, that means it could cost the organization between $30,000 to $45,000 in both recruiting and training costs. The higher in salary and responsibility the higher the costs, such as even twice annual salary.


For low paying jobs, the costs are less, probably around 16% of an annual salary. So if you have an employee making $15/hr. , the costs are about $5,000.


What can you do?

  • Look at why people are leaving. Do exit interviews.
  • Involve employees in the workplace environment. Ask what they need to be productive. And if it’s due to administrative problems or interpersonal issues with managers, fix the problem.
  • Sometimes it’s a simple as more employee recognition. A “thank you” or “good job” can be as satisfying as extra pay (well, almost).
  • Provide more training. Employee burnout leads to unsatisfied employees who want to go elsewhere.


Put the costs on your side; find ways to keep your employees retained. 



PRAXES offers consulting services to social service organizations, including human resource management.


For more information, please contact us. 

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