As temporary agencies and staffing services alike can tell you, employee retention is a growing problem here in the United States. Employees are leaving their jobs after only being employed there for short periods of time, always looking for the next best thing. This is costing companies billions – as much as eleven billion dollars in just one year – as this rapid employee turnover is nothing if not a money suck. For more than fifty five percent of all companies throughout the United States, employee retention rates have quickly become a top concern, with more and more companies growing worried about keeping their employees for long periods of time than ever before.
There are a number of reasons why employee retention has become so problematic here in the United States. With more than twenty percent of new hires leaving their jobs within a mere month and a half or so after being hired, many higher ups in companies feel that poor employee retention rates are partly due to poor hiring in the first place and a poor candidate pool for the job. If an employee’s skills are not a good fit for the position, it is more likely than not that they will search for a different job sooner rather than later. Even if they stayed on at their current job, they are likely to struggle to find success.
This problem can at least partly be alleviated through the use of temporary agencies. Temporary agencies can provide temporary job placement to people who are very much in need of work. Because temporary agencies provide only temporary job placement, companies do not need to commit to or invest as much money into said employee. For many workers, temporary to permanent jobs are becoming an ideal way to get on the path towards a career, and temporary agencies provide the temp services that are essential to make this a reality. Fortunately for many, the use of temporary agencies in the United States is growing and as temporary agencies can fit prospective employees with the job or jobs that they are likely to be the most suited for, it is likely that temporary agencies can help to improve the rates of employee retention as seen by the majority of companies in the United States. In fact, temporary agencies have become so popular that now more than three million people in all parts of the United States have been employed through them and are now working on a temporary or contract basis.
Aside from temporary agencies, better screening processes can also help to find employees that will work with the position for the long term – or at least for more than just a month and a half. For instance, as social media has become more prevalent in all of our lives, so too has social media screening. Nowadays, instead of just the simply background check, as many as ninety three percent of your prospective employers will take a look at your social media platforms as well, keeping an eye out for things that might signal you to be a less than stellar employee. This is just one way in which screening can be done, but it is of course not the only way. The interview process should be thorough and comprehensive and should leave no stone unturned. It’s also crucial to give the person who is being interviewed a chance to ask their own questions, as this will allow you to assess their critical thinking ability as well as all of the other information that you have gleaned over the course of the interview process.
On top of simply hiring the wrong candidate, existing employees are often not as engaged in their work as would be ideal. In fact, more than thirty five percent of all HR professionals cite employee engagement as their second leading concern behind employee retention only. And, when surveyed, only around twenty percent of all employees said that they felt adequately motivated and supported. For companies that institute employee recognition programs, these problems can at least partly be alleviated, with more than eighty five percent saying that employee recognition programs have helped.
