Reducing employee turnover is a constant struggle for most companies. This is especially true in current events, starting from the COVID pandemic and “worker shortages” that have spurred companies to offer incentives to onboard more employees. Nowadays, employee retention is a challenge, and there’s no simple, easy fix for it.
How bad is it? And how much does it cost to replace an employee? We all love some hard numbers, and staffing companies have done plenty of research on this subject. But as an employer, these numbers are probably a bit hard to look at:
- Nearly 19 million people either leave the labor force or change occupations each year.
- The average turnover rate for any given company is 20% (13% voluntary, 7% involuntary), and the average quit rate sits at about 2.5%.
- 38% of new hires quit within 12 months, with 2/3 of those quitting within the first 6 months.
- Employers spend about 1/3 of a lost employee’s salary for each resignation. This statistic holds true from entry-level to senior positions at most companies.
- For hourly employees, the loss of an $8/hr employee can cost a company well over $5000. When taking into account the lifetime costs of employee turnover, it’s estimated that even a single instance can run high costs.
And when we look at the secondary cost effects of employee turnover, there’s much more than money at stake. A company with high employee turnover risks:
- A damaged reputation that makes talented potential employees turn the other way.
- Employee burnout from compensating for empty positions.
- Lower employee morale, less engagement, and a breakdown of cooperative corporate culture.
When you consider all the factors of employee turnover, like hiring costs, lower productivity, training, etc., you get a better idea of how expensive it is, both to your bottom line and to the stability of your workforce. The resulting social effects of employee turnover we just discussed tend to create a vicious cycle of lower morale to higher turnover to lower morale to higher turnover, and so on. It’s like a bee colony collapsing. And one huge factor in companies with employee turnover is that they have a corporate culture that lacks care or recognition for their employees.
Why Implementing an Employee Recognition Program Saves More than Money
So, why initiate an employee recognition program? There are a bunch of reasons. First, you stop your company from becoming one of the above statistics. Second, you boost employee morale and company loyalty. Third, your company gets a good reputation for taking care of its employees. And there are many other symptoms of a healthy corporate culture, like increased engagement, work quality, productivity, and keeping talent and skill with you and not your competitors. And at the end of the day, we might use numbers to analyze what our work produces, but we can’t use numbers to analyze our work processes; we need intuition, compassion, and professional development for that.
And, through a properly integrated employee motivation program, you can stay in tune with how your team members are feeling. Their motivation level and emotional state are all things you can take note of as you have sincere conversations and regular check-ins. From this information, you can plan an energizing employee-focused recognition event that speaks to your team members.
Aside from the program flow, no recognition event is complete without personalized awards that are unique and interesting. Here are a few employee recognition award ideas:
- Handing out unique corporate gifts at the holiday party.
- Creating personalized corporate gifts for your employees on special occasions to celebrate successes.
- Ordering everyone’s business cards and business card holders for their desks and handing them out during a particularly hard week.
- Trophies and plaques for things like top sales awards.
- Installing a large perpetual plaque for the employee of the month outside a congregating place, like the break room.
- Designing an engraved nameplate.
- Engraved pens that write smoothly and feature the company’s name, logo, and department for everyone in the office.
- Goodbye parties and retirement award plaques to send off senior employees in style.
Nearly a third of workers who leave their jobs say they did it because they didn’t feel like their company recognized or appreciated them. And researchers say that companies that implement employee recognition awards programs and keep a positive and engaging company culture can reduce their turnover rates by up to 60%. So, when you’re doing your annual cost/benefit analysis, and you’re trying to figure out ways to get people to stick with you, throw around some employee award ideas. With the help of the right corporate gifts and awards company, you can implement an effective employee recognition program on any budget.
Recognition is an Important Factor that Reduces Employee Turnover
Companies should not underestimate the positive impacts of employee recognition. Oftentimes, team members are run ragged without any acknowledgement of their efforts. Aside from competitive wages and sufficient vacation days, people also require encouragement and recognition. One of the usual ways to integrate employee recognition is through personalized awards.
Recognition award ideas range from simple tokens like engraved pens to high-end, luxury corporate gifts like engraved crystal clocks. From a huge variety of corporate awards and gift options, you can surely find the best gift that speaks to the recipient’s achievements. No matter which gift you choose, you should never forget about adding personalization to transform the award into something that’s solely tailored to the honoree.
