turnover

Tips to Effectively Manage Employee Turnover

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employee turnover

Keeping Costs Low and Morale Up During Employee Turnover

Employee turnover can be a difficult problem for industrial companies. Turnover presents many challenges: ensuring new employees have adequate training, maintaining safety and procedural standards in the workplace, preventing slowdown and inefficiency on the line, preventing increased costs to the company, and maintaining morale among remaining employees whose workload might fluctuate with the added responsibility of keeping up with demand and instructing new co-workers. This article will offer some tips and insights into how you can avoid or minimize many of these problems, which would otherwise be detrimental to your company’s growth.

 

1. Create an Encouraging Environment for New Employees

One of the most important things that a workplace can do to improve productivity is to maintain high employee morale. This goes for seasoned workers as well as new hires. Even an experienced employee who is new to your company will perform far more effectively in an environment where they feel they have room to ask questions, get help, voice concerns, and build confidence in their role. In addition to this, make sure your new employees are familiar with the policies and procedures of your company, from safety protocols to where they should submit their time sheets at the end of a pay period.

 

2. Listen to the Concerns of Remaining Employees

It’s vital to keep morale high during times of intense employee turnover. Remaining employees might wonder what their workload may look like or how floor efficiency could be impacted. It is important to clearly communicate your expectations to your employees. However, it is just as important to hear their concerns and work with them to find solutions. Giving your employees a voice during periods of change enables them to feel heard and keeps workforce morale from dipping, which is key for any company trying to avoid a serious drop in efficiency. If remaining workers feel respected, this can help prevent exacerbating turnover as well as encourage employees to come to you for help solving problems in the future.

 

3. Connect New Employees and Experienced Employees

New employees will work and learn much more effectively if they’re able to shadow experienced employees, ask them questions, and come to them for insight. This also will help experienced employees feel as if they’re a part of the growth of the company and are involved in improving the effectiveness of the workplace. It can also help reduce training costs and improve the learning curve for those new to the job, increasing profitability in the long run.

 

4. Make Sure There Are Enough New Workers

As soon as possible, ensure that your company is making enough new hires to pick up slack in production and relieve the workload of remaining employees. Inevitably, the more strain added to a workforce, the less efficiently it will operate. Therefore, this is a problem you will want to solve as soon as you are able; current employees will want to see that their hard work will be relieved. From the standpoint of productivity, workers who are stretched too thin will struggle with morale and efficiency, so making sure this issue is addressed as quickly as possible is important.

 

5. Manage Costs Without Slowing Down

Companies often shudder at the thought of employee turnover, with good reason: The associated costs can balloon up to twice the salary of a retained worker. However, there are various other ways these costs can be reduced. One of the most effective is to entrust hiring to an outside company that specializes in matching qualified employees with positions like the ones you need filled. While upfront costs might seem to make this a more expensive option, in reality, the money you will save by receiving qualified replacements quickly will be far more than the fees associated with a hiring service. These services help you replace employees quickly, allowing you to save money that would have been lost during the long period of inadequate staff, slowed productivity, and training.

There will inevitably be challenges with employee turnover, but with the proper resources and methods, you can minimize the difficulties your company will encounter in the process.

Why You Should Outsource Your Safety Staffing

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Outsource with ResponsAble Safety Staffing

Let’s face it. Your plate is full. You don’t really have the time to go through the process of interviewing, hiring, training, and dealing with the endless paperwork and compliance issues that come with bringing on new employees. Not to mention the fact that whenever one project ends, you have to deal with new issues like layoffs, holdover costs, and unemployment. You don’t want all that, you just want quality people to get the job done.

That’s where we come in.

When you work with us, you get professionals with the experience you need that can greatly impact your company’s bottom line. By working with ResponsAble, you can protect your investment, keep your employees safe and healthy, reduce your overall health care costs, and avoid workers compensation claims.

Streamline the hiring process with us. For you, hiring couldn’t be simpler.

How Outsourcing Works with ResponsAble Safety Staffing

We work with you to understand your specific safety personnel needs. We then provide you with a position description to make sure we supply a perfect match. Then, our expert recruiters do the leg work to match a candidate with your position description.

We eliminate both the time and the cost of recruiting.

  • We write and run the ads that find the best qualified candidates for you.
  • We spend the time looking through hundreds of resumes to find the ones that meet the requirements you need, so you don’t have to.
  • We interview and test the candidates to ensure they meet the ResponsAble standards as well as your standards.
  • We provide a perfect match for your specific job on your timeline.

ResponsAble recruits, hires and trains all year round to hire a pool of qualified talent, train them, and match them to the right employer for the best job fit. 

  • We are continuously hiring safety personnel.
  • We test and rank for skill levels and specialties.
  • We do full background checks to make sure candidates are in good standing on a variety of areas including prior employer checks, driving record, and drug testing.
  • We provide ongoing training, certification, and development of employees to improve their fit with more positions and companies.

To put it simply, our training reduces your cost in training and development. Our training ensures longevity of service with ResponsAble, which guarantees our placement of loyal, responsible, employees that we have personal experience with and can fully endorse. We are more than just a staffing company. We are a talent pool.

You hire us so your clients will rehire you! Click here to get in touch with us about the positions that you need filled. You can also give us a call at  (225) 753-1909.

 

What is a Hole Watch and Why Are They So Important?

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hole watch

Dave Wagner remembers his first confined space job. He survived it.

A gas monitoring specialist, Wagner worked as a laborer for a public utility company while in college. Through a small 24-inch portal, he and his summer coworkers passed into a large condenser. Once inside, they inserted a metal plug and high-pressure hose into a series of one-inch tubes, cleaning them of debris.

It was hot, wet work with minimal ventilation. Balance was hard to maintain, and worst of all, the stench was awful! For Dave Wagner and his coworkers, safety provisions were minimal at best. They were sent into a confined space with no provisions laid out for the likelihood that an accident could happen – no escape or rescue plan.

The Important Role of a Hole Watch?

The Department of Labor defines a confined space as having one of the following characteristics:

  • A hazardous atmosphere, or the potential for one
  • “The potential to engulf an entrant” within the space
  • Narrowing walls or tapering floors, either of which could entrap someone
  • The presence of unguarded machinery, exposed live wires, or heat stress

As with Wagner’s first job, industrial workers are often required to perform special tasks in these confined spaces. For them, the experiences are anything but enjoyable, and are often very dangerous. But unlike Wagner’s experience, workers today who are permitted to enter confined spaces need an attendant – a hole watch. The presence of a hole watch—a confined space attendant—can mean the difference between life and death.

Unlike the casual sound of its name, this is one of the most important positions on the industrial crew. The hole watch must be vigilant to hazards like toxic fumes, combustible gases, and entrapment risks, and often use portable monitors to sample air quality in the work area. They must communicate regularly with those within the space while keeping visible contact. The hole watch is not meant to enter the confined space and attempt a rescue, that is to be left to the rescue professionals. It is their job to recognize dangerous situations, raise the alarm, and initiate evacuation, so content awareness of all surroundings is a must.

Who Is Your Best Hole Watch?

Confined space attendants are in high demand in today’s industrial job market, but it is important to hire the most trained and experienced. Hole watch personnel are entrusted with the safety of every other crew member who enters the confined space. A fully trained confined space attendant understands the hazards of confined space entry; a fully trained confined space attendant knows the proper procedures for acquiring help. Industrial laborers today work under the protection of OSHA regulations, and there are many policies surrounding the safety of confined space workers. A fully trained confined space attendant knows these OSHA practices for safety.

What do you learn to do as a hole watch, as a confined space attendant? You learn to preserve life. That need was there in Dave Wagner’s day. It’s certainly still there today.

 

The 3 Challenges of Quality Contingency Staffing

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Reality TV producers want us to believe that the people on their shows are just regular people – practically just wandered in off the street. They want us to believe that they just turn on the cameras and film whatever happens. But we are not so easily fooled, right?  We know that they audition thousands of hopefuls – all looking for their 15 minutes of fame, or to be the next Kim Kardashian. And, they script most of the drama in those ‘reality’ shows to make sure the audience is hooked.

Sometimes, contingency staffing can look easy.  It can look like just about anyone off the street can wander in and do the job as good as the next guy. You may think that because it is not such a ‘hard’ job, you should be able to find people to fill it with no problem at all, right?

Well, the truth is more like reality TV.  You have to go through thousands of applicants and you have to carefully script the way that you bring them on board, train them, pay them, insure them, and manage them.  It is a deceptively complex project that would put even the seasoned reality TV casting agent to the test.

Challenge 1: Good Talent Is Hard to Find

In an interview with the job opportunity website Simply Hired, one corporate CEO recently stressed that the talent search is essential.

“Talent. Talent. Talent is the key, representing one of the staffing industry’s greatest challenges.” Why? That’s easy.

Talent is key because your jobs, and your clients, demand precision and quality. They are demanding, so you have to be demanding in your hiring. You may not think of a Fire Watch as ‘talented.’ But the truth is, a good one, who understands safety, who is attentive to detail, who is reliable, punctual, agreeable, and alert, is the exception – not the rule. Not only does it take the right kind of ‘talent’ to do the job well, but it also takes talent to find those people.

As a hiring professional, you’ve learned to be selective. Even just a few hiring missteps will quickly eat up your time and your budget. It’s one reason many companies choose to look for a contingency staffing agency to do the work for them – one that cares as much about the selection process as you do.

How do you know if they can bring you the talent you need? Here’s a few tips for looking into their practices. It is smart to do your homework.

  • Ask about the agency’s selection process; be specific.
  • Ask about all the services they provide, from insurance to payroll.
  • Ask what they do to ensure that the staff they provide is performing on site.
  • Ask about their worker training process.
  • Ask them if they specialize in safety staffing, or if it is just one kind of staffing they do.
  • Most of all, ask about the firm’s industrial project experience.

You want talented people, and few temporary agencies can guarantee it. You must be selective, so choose an agency that’s as selective as you are. One that understands the complexity of an industrial job site.

And one that protects your standards.

Challenge 2: Specialty Training Requires Time and Effort

In the same Simply Hired article, another agency manager noted the importance of training. Internal: among staff members. And on behalf of clients: among the temps hired to work for them.

It takes a while to acclimate a new employer to any work environment.

You expect that.

But should you have to train them how best to communicate with each other and their supervisors? To follow simple instructions. To report to work on time.

A contingency workforce that respects your work is ideal. In your setting, you also need workers who:

  • Understand your job vocabulary.
  • Value your expectations.
  • Can be counted on to serve your needs.

If you use a staffing agency be sure they honor your work environment, company culture and provide staff that are trained not only in safety, but in a way that ensures you’ll get competent, prepared people.

Of course, it goes without saying that specialty safety training is costly and complicated. Choose a staffing agency willing to invest in their people, not cut corners, and even go beyond the required bare minimum of safety training. When they do, they’re investing in you and your needs.

And that will save you time and money.

Challenge 3: Turnover Kills Your Bottom Line

“Thanks for thinking of me. I enjoyed working with you on your last job, and you’ve taught me a lot. But, since then I’ve found another job.”

If you care about your temporary staff, you wish them well when they finish a job. And yet, every time, you risk not ever getting the same person back again. The next time you may have to start over and do all the work from scratch – the recruiting, the screening and the training. Unless you have a constant need, you just can’t offer temporary staff enough consistent employment to build any kind of loyalty or really even recoup your investment in hiring and training them the first time.

The better they’ve been at the job, the more likely they’ll find something else before your next job.

In fact, the better they are, the least likely they’ll be available for you to hire in the first place. Given the choice, don’t you think a quality temporary employee is going to choose to work with a staffing agency that keeps them employed consistently over a longer term at various jobs, than sit around and wait for your call?

Though you’ll never eliminate contingency turnover even by using an agency, a quality staffing agency will be able to limit its affects.

  • Through constant recruiting and hiring, additional talented people are readily available at all times.
  • Because employment is more consistent, the employee coming to you next is likely to have more experience already.
  • Industrial temporary work isn’t for everyone; the best firms understand suitability.
  • Industrial project schedules vary; managing turnover ensures continuity.

Your work continues most smoothly as you lean on those you trust. Turnover is an enemy hard to control. Let a solid staffing agency reduce the sting.

That will ensure your productivity and save you money.

Selective Contingency Staffing Can Save Your Bacon

Contingency staffing is here to stay.

The need for talented, well-trained and stable people, on demand, is as essential as ever.

Your work requires you to invest in hiring and training. And you do everything you can to keep good people once you find them.

You care about that. You have to. So, make sure to partner with a staffing agency capable of providing a contingency workforce that meets your standards. One that invests in careful hiring and adequate training. Like you do.

A lack of talented people can be a real problem. So is the effort required to fully train them. Trying hard to keep people around only adds to your worries.

Select a staffing agency skilled in industrial work. Let them share your burdens.

A quality agency will provide you with a quality workforce. And that will eliminate some of your most frustrating problems. Save you time and money. And push the work along. Within budget.

How?

By providing you with talented, well-trained and motivated people who want to work and will stay the course.