The 5 most common reasons why employees quit and how to avoid it

As we know, the workforce is the most important element of your business. If you have committed employees, it’s very complicated for you to go wrong. On the opposite side, if you don’t have committed staff, it’s very likely that the employees quit.

Even so, in the retail and catering sectors, employees are prone to quitting. However, you can reduce this labor cost if you know the reason why they do it. Employee turnover means you have to spend time and money looking for another worker who must also undergo a learning period in the company. Meanwhile you are losing performance from the customer traffic. But what if you could keep the good workers longer? That would mean lower labor costs and saved time.

Here are the 5 most common reasons why employees quit and how you can avoid it:

1. Bad treatment by the company (bad labor conditions)

As we know, a good salary is important. If workers don’t have a salary that they agree with (or that corresponds to their positions), it’s very likely that they´ll want to quit. But a monetary salary is not everything; you also have emotional salary. Workers value having benefits, flexibility and advantages, such as: vacation time, flexible schedules, flexibility with personal and family matters, childcare services, etc.

Thus, achieving the perfect match between a monetary salary and an emotional salary, workers will be satisfied with this part of the job.

2. Working hours and not knowing their schedule early enough

In the retail and catering sectors, due to the shop-restaurant’s long operating hours, it´s very important to notify employees of their work schedule in advance. If they do not have this information, they cannot organize their private lives or make plans, which is very negative for the business´ goals.

This requires careful and correct workforce planning and emitting a schedule in advance for each employee. Besides, if the employee has possibility to change their availability on some days without hassle, express his shift preference, take some time off during the work day to take care of personal or family matters and change easily theirs shift with others fellows, it´s more likely that they´ll be happy with the position and stay longer.

Fortunately, using workforce management solutions, which help in this area and include all the variables that influence this process (such as giving workers the option of changing shifts, expressing preferences, etc.), working on this point is easier than ever.

3. Not feeling valued in the company

Many workers look for another job because they do not feel valued by the company or their supervisors, are unmotivated or see no possibility of growth within the company.

In this case, the problem can be significantly reduced recognizing the contributions and ideas of workers, rewarding good work, caring for them personally, motivating workers and creating new challenges, and promoting people who deserve it.

4. Excessive workload

For a good employee, there’s nothing more exhausting than having a disproportionate workload, and it’s one of the main reasons for quitting.

According to a study by Stanford University, overwork leads to decreased total output. In fact, productivity per hour decreases significantly when there are more than 50 hours of work per week, and practically no benefits are generated after 55 hours of work.

This is why you must have perfect workforce scaling and planning with the right worker (who has the professional skills and knowledge needed) in the right team and schedule. Then you can distribute the workload and schedule employees appropriately.

5. Bad work environment

Workers spend most of the day at work, and having a good working relationship with colleagues, bosses and the entire company is essential to doing their job well.

This part is directly related to the above points. Having poor labor conditions, bad schedule organization, not feeling valued and excessive workloads create a bad working environment from which it is difficult to escape.

At the end of the day, if you work on the areas listed above and foster good relationships between colleagues and teams, you will be well on your way to having your business operate like a well-oiled machine. Knowing why employees quit, you can work to prevent them from doing it.