5 Surefire Ways to Increase Your Turnover, Cost You Money & Cut Your Profits

While you may think you’re doing everything you can to cut costs, boost profits, and keep employees happy, chances are, you’re probably not. See if any of these mistakes ring true for your retail business.

1. You Don’t Bother with Employee Onboarding

You’re simply too busy running your business to spend too much time training your staff and ensuring that new hires are comfortable. After all, they’re just going to quit in three months, so why should you bother?

You said it right there: they’re going to leave, and soon…unless you give them a reason to stay. That starts with smarter training up front.

Build a system around how you handle new hires. Ensure that they have ample time to shadow a more experienced staffer, learn your POS system, and work with someone supervising so they feel confident at their role, and to ensure they’re doing it correctly. The better engaged you are with a new hire, the more likely he’ll be to stay on.

2. You Never Look at Your Expenses

Again, you’re too saddled with admin work to do anything that doesn’t seem essential, and looking at your bank account isn’t a necessity unless it’s empty, right?

Wrong. There’s a good chance you’re spending more than you need to without realizing it. Here are some areas where you might be able to cut your costs:

• Find a cheaper supplier
• Negotiate with your current supplier; buy more for a lower per-unit cost
• Eliminate your landline and use Skype and cell phones

3. You Don’t Really Turn on Your Surveillance Camera

You think shrinkage doesn’t happen to you. It would be nice if that were true, but unless you’re paying attention, you have no way of knowing whether shoplifters — or even your own staff — are stealing from you. And not knowing can cost you big time.

4. You’re the Manager and Everything Else

You don’t want to shell out the money to pay for a professional store manager, so you do the job…while simultaneously balancing your checkbook, ordering supplies, and marketing your business. No wonder your staff is constantly on Facebook when they are supposed to be working! They lack management.

There’s no reason you can’t be the store manager, if you have the time and the aptitude. But if you have no clue how to manage staff and be a strong leader, set your ego aside and hire someone. It will cost you, but you’ll save in the long run when customers enjoy being in your store and your staff starts taking orders better.

5. You Let Employees Walk Out of the Door

Are you satisfied with the industry average for employee turnover at 60% or more? You shouldn’t be. You should do whatever it takes to keep employees from leaving.

Yes, they will eventually quit. But getting a year out of an employee rather than a month reduces your cost and keeps you from having to constantly spend time posting a job online, interviewing, and training a new hire.

Jon Byrum is the president and co-founder of Hello Scheduling, a provider of employee scheduling and time clock software for small businesses. He posts regularly about his start-up experience on the Hello Scheduling blog.