[Editor's Note: Dawn Lennon is one of EmployWise.com's expert authors. She is the author of the book Business Fitness: The Power to Succeed—Your Way and the Business Fitness blog. She spent over 20 years in senior manager positions in consumer programs, HR, customer service, and change management at a Fortune 500 energy company. She is currently president of her career and small business coaching/consulting practice, Big Picture Consulting. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Dawn has a Master’s degree from Lehigh University.]

When employees leave, it’s about you, not them. Attrition is a reflection on your company’s ability to attract and retain the right people.

“How can that be?” you ask.

An employee’s life cycle with you starts from hiring. You:

• Post a vacancy, spelling out a job that’s interesting and has growth potential
• Interview candidates, telling them all the good things about working for your company
• Select a candidate, make him/her a good salary and benefits offer, and set a start date

At this point you have set expectations that your new employee is counting on. You likely promised:

Job orientation and process training

• Accessible supervision
• Opportunities for career growth and development,
• A nice work station and the proper job tools

You’ve stated clearly what you’re giving. Have you said anything about what you expect in return?

The art of the employment deal

Before employees begin working for you, they need to understand that you expect them to:

• Come to work on time and adhere to established policies/procedures (If you don’t have them in writing, you need to fix that.)
• Collaborate with their supervisors on their annual performance goals
• Engage effectively with the team
• Commit to the mission of the company
• Treat customers with respect

Every employee needs boundaries and expectations, established by you, to help them be successful and build a career. They also need to understand what a business is and how it works. You need to teach them that.

When employees leave, it disrupts the work, rattles employees, causes customers to wonder, and can start to erode your brand. Every employee who leaves will have something to say about your company to anyone who’ll listen.

Fix what’s broken within.

Here are typical reasons why employees leave:

• You’ve hired a candidate who doesn’t fit, so your process needs to be reviewed and hiring managers retrained.
• Your supervisors are ineffective in communicating with, providing direction to, and/or making employees feel valued.
• You’re working conditions, reward system, and growth opportunities aren’t enough to hold them. Someone else is stealing them away.
• The job doesn’t live up to your promises.
• Their supervisor and/or the company is perceived as being unfair, having favorites, and/or unethical.
• They don’t think you care about them, don’t know how to lead, or are not perceived as a viable company over the long term.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, both of The Gallup Organization wrote a great book, First, Break All the Rules. In it they reported the findings of 20 years of research which included interviews with over 80,000 managers in over 400 companies.

Among many other fascinating discoveries, they learned this: Employees don’t leave companies; they leave managers.

That’s where you look first when you experience excessive attrition. What are your managers doing or not doing that is driving your employees out the door?

You will likely learn what’s contributing to your attrition when you conduct:

• A root-cause analysis with your managers each time you lose an employee that you wanted to keep
• An exit interview with departing employees, asking questions about why they are moving on and what role their supervisor/manager may have had in their decision
• A review and assessment of manager/supervisory skills and training
• Performance reviews of your supervisors/managers that include their effectiveness with hiring and retaining good employees

Attrition is costly. It’s an expense that can you can control. A small business feels the pain of attrition much more acutely than a large organization.

Reducing attrition is in the hands of your managers. Employees are likely your greatest expense and the promise of your future growth and profitability. That makes attracting and retaining good ones very good business.

Photo by: Windy Sydney