Measure and track labour turnover and stability, on either a monthly or quarterly basis. This way, you will know what to tackle and will have a measure in place to track improvements:

Labour turnover =	Total number of leavers during the period x 100
	Total number of positions in the organisation

Stability index = % of leavers with less than six months' service

If your stability index is high, review your recruitment processes. It is sometimes the case that employees leave because they have been poorly recruited and given false expectations. The best example is employees who are over-sold the job and the business and who, on joining, are disappointed with what they find, hence the psychological contract suffers and they leave. Another example is where the fit between the person's skills and what is needed is too large and cannot be resolved by training.

If your stability index is high, this could also indicate a need to improve your induction processes. A high stability index says that you are losing employees with short service and this could be because they are not being effectively inducted or introduced into your organisation.

Find out why people are leaving. You can do this in one of two ways, either by conducting an exit interview , or by asking them to complete a short questionnaire. Explain why you want the information - that you intend to use it to make improvements in the future and that you would greatly appreciate their honest response.

Some employers prefer to use either HR departments, or employees outside of the immediate working area to do this, or even use external consultants, in an attempt to encourage employees to really "open up" and give truthful answers and comments on their reasons for leaving.

Read our guide on exit interviews and use our exit interview form to gather your data. Look at what it's telling you and, even more meaningfully, look at trends.

The exit interviews will provide you with some useful data on those who are leaving. However, it's invariably too late to retain someone when they get to the stage of handing in their notice. Therefore, it is a good idea to conduct an employee satisfaction survey on a regular basis. This will give you information on the opinions of your entire workforce - what they are satisfied and dissatisfied with. Conduct the surveys six monthly or annually. Study the results and take actions to improve the areas highlighted as sources of employee dissatisfaction.

A few more points:

• Be particularly careful to retain your star performers - those who do a really good job. Be careful not to discriminate , but clearly these employees are your most valuable and should be retained.
• When you measure labour turnover, you may find it useful to separate out those who leave for reasons outside your control (moving house, retiring etc) from those which you could have avoided.
• Typical reasons for leaving are listed below with possible remedies:
   
  

  Reason for leaving	Remedy
  Low pay	Benchmark your pay with other companies who compete in the same labour market and make adjustments where you are behind the market. Remember that low pay is rarely the only reason why people leave, so delve for the others. Sometimes people will make pay comparisons on basic pay only. You may provide additional benefits eg bonus opportunities, health cover, which make your total package more attractive. An annual "benefits statement" listing these, and specifying their value, may help. Alternatively if you are providing benefits which are of little value to your employees and which they do not appreciate, you may wish to consider offering a flexible benefits scheme.
  Lack of involvement	This is a popular one. Lack of involvement can be the biggest demotivator. Ask the opinions of all your employees and involve them in areas that affect them. Even more importantly, listen to what they have to say and take on board their ideas, or tell them why not. Consider introducing an employee suggestion scheme where good ideas to improve the business are invited and rewarded if acted upon.
  Hours of work	Try to be flexible, if you can, to accommodate the working hours that suit your employees as well as you.
  Working environment	Ask your employees to think of ways in which the working environment could be improved. Give them a budget (which could be zero - you can often make improvements without spending money).
  Job content	This is also a popular one. Use the appraisal process to ensure that regular discussions take place with each of your employees about them, their job and their plans. Find ways to enrich jobs for people who need a greater challenge. Give them projects, involve them in other areas, delegate areas of responsibility etc.