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Submitted by kingdave on
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I recently was hired at a new company.  Everything went great until the issue of salary.  I did my research and found the average starting salary for someone with my experience, education, and their job description.  But their offer and my expectation was off by about 33%.

Their justification was that this position has had a lot of turnover, so they "hedge their bet", so to speak, by grossly underpaying (my words, not theirs) at first, and then once the employee has a couple years at the company, then the pay increases.

I just came from another company that doesn't necessarily underpay, but they do have a lot of turnover, and thus spends hundreds of thousands, in our region alone, in new employee training.

I'm only 30, so I don't have too much experience with these issues, but my thought is that if there's high turnover, it means your company is competing with other entities for talent. When you're competing, you want to make yourself attractive, and more benefits will keep people around.  Why not use part of that training budget to make the current employees happier so they won't leave so quickly?

How do you guys battle turnover in your companies?

mmann's picture
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KINGDAVE,

I've found that by building a relationship with my direct reports, giving them a demanding/challenging workload, and giving them feedback mostly on their productive behavior, with an occaisional bit of constructive feedback, and never missing an opportunity to draw attention to their progress and accomplishments,  I can keep most employees for a very long time, as long as their compensation is fair, or enough to live a comfortable life.

All of my experience has been with knowledge workers. 

 

--Michael
  Btw- I apologize for the length of that first sentence.  If I'd had more time I would have made it shorter.

krishead's picture
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People leave organizations because they feel opportunities are better elsewhere.  This can be related to compensation, development opportunities, work-life balance, personal issues, ect. 

Once compensation is at market rate,  I feel the next most important issue is interpersonal.  The rest follow in various orders.

You may want to ask the company why they feel their turnover rate is so high and what their plan for addressing it is. 

They may see you as easily replaceable in the market or of less importance within the company if they are willing to underpay you with the hope that you might stay for the long haul.

 

-Kris