The Cost of Employee Turnover

All of the information we’ve written about on proper hiring and training procedures in this and past issues of The Practice Solution are based upon several key issues: a) to have the most productive office possible you have to have a team of good staff, working well together to accomplish the mission of the practice, and b) the cost of employee turnover can be very high, therefore hiring the right people who remain with you long-term can save a tremendous amount of money.

The facts are that employee turnover can be very costly. Studies indicate that such a cost can equal 6 to 9 months of the salary of the position. This is based on the costs involved in finding, interviewing, testing, selecting, training and getting a new employee fully functioning on the job. There is also the cost of lost income that can occur during the period of employee development, especially if the position is empty for a period of time.

If the position pays $3000 per month, your costs could be between $18,000 and $27,000 every time the position turns over. That may seem high, but because much of that is a “hidden” cost, you may not see it. But you will experience it in the long run. It’s therefore extremely important to test and screen applicants properly and carefully in order to hire the best possible individuals for your practice.

Your goal is to find employees who will work well within the procedural framework of your office and stay, contribute to and grow with your practice. In order to find those people you need successful hiring practices including tests, applications, reference checks, interview questions and more that can help with the hiring process. Only looking at a resume and conducting an interview is no way to determine the quality of an applicant. Hiring someone off of a resume/interview alone is a crap shoot and can be disastrous in the long run. If you are interested in learning more about successful hiring procedures, including what tests to use, what to look for in an application, what screening procedures are best to filter out the best applicants, who should you interview and how do you conduct a productive interview, contact me at: kderouchie@silkinanalysis.com or call me at 800-695-0257.

Ken DeRouchie

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