Great manufacturing employees are hard to find – and they can be even harder to keep. Turnover can negatively impact morale, diminish productivity, and wreak havoc on the bottom line. When you add those costs to the hard costs of replacing an employee, it is extremely important to focus on identifying the cause of turnover so you can take steps to correct course and stop losing your top manufacturing workers to turnover.
No Room To Grow
Some of your employees will be content staying in the same role over time. However, your most talented people want to grow and advance. If they do not see a path to advancement and if they do not feel supported in their desire to move up, they will look for a company that does offer growth opportunities.
Implement a process of quarterly reviews where managers talk with their team members about where they want to go. Then, help them understand what they need to do to take the next steps and be there to support them in their development.
Poor Managers
People don’t leave jobs, they leave bad managers. This old adage exists for one simple reason – truth. A bad manager saps the motivation right out of a team. If certain managers can’t seem to keep employees for long, you could have a managerial issue on your hands.
Not everyone who does a great job on the floor will naturally become a great manager. Make sure to your managers and leaders are identifying people with real leadership potential and nurturing them up the supervisory ladder. Great managers develop productive and highly engaged teams who will stay with the company for the long haul.
Overwork and Burnout
Manufacturing is a tough business and overtime is quite normal. However, demanding too much overtime from manufacturing workers almost always leads to burnout and ultimately, to turnover. While you may think you are boosting productivity, there is actually little value in working someone more than 50 hours per week. Research from Stanford shows that productivity per hour declines sharply when employees log more than 50 weekly hours, and productivity drops so much after 55 hours that there is no benefit to the additional time.
Because there is little you can do about tight deadlines, managers often feel they have no choice but to overwork their employees. However, hiring skilled temporary staff can help manage workflow, control hours, control overtime cost and prevent burnout.
Are You Ready To Boost Manufacturing Retention?
If you are looking for more tips on stopping turnover, or if you would like to improve your hiring processes to ensure you’re locating candidates with long-term staying power, Employment Professionals Canada can help. Contact our manufacturing staffing experts to start the conversation today.