Minimising Offshore Staff Turnover

Losing staff is one of the most disruptive things which can happen in business. Having to go through the hiring process, the loss of productivity as the role is empty or you have to carry out training, and establishing communication channels with the new employee. Thus, minimising offshore staff turnover is a big part of maximising the success of your outsourcing project.

Risk factors

There are a number of risk factors which push an employee towards quitting their job. Some of these are:

• High levels of monotony and low levels of autonomy

Doing the same thing over and over again, with no room to express your creativity or personality, and no leeway to manage your own work.

• Feeling devalued as a person and as a worker

Not getting recognition for the work you’ve done or feedback as to how well you are performing, and the feeling that your boss sees you as less of a person than a cog in their machine.

• Constant pressure and stress

Long hours, impossible deadlines, and running to put out one fire after another takes its toll on any employee – both physically and mentally.

• Lack of security

Never knowing if you’ll have a job next week or next month often drives employees to jump before they get pushed – or the entire enterprise sinks.

• Lack of human interaction

By and large people are social creatures. Going to work shouldn’t be an exercise in isolation.

Managing these risk factors to minimise turnover

When dealing with your offshore staff, it’s important to recognise if one or more of these risk factors are at play and take positive steps to combatting them.

Communication is key

Because you don’t see your remote team every day, it can be harder to pick up when an employee is particularly under stress than with your local team. The solution is to communicate regularly and openly with your remote staff. By getting to know them you not only show that you value them and their work, you’re more likely to recognise when something is going wrong early. From there, asking what the problem is and working out ways to address it becomes much easier.

Fostering an environment where it’s acceptable to bring up problems is important if you want to be able to nip potential issues in the bud. Employees should be encouraged to raise issues early and reassured that doing so won’t get them in trouble.

Have clear performance measures

Your remote staff shouldn’t be guessing as to whether they’re doing a good job or not. Providing feedback against pre-discussed performance metrics removes any confusion about where things are at and whether your remote employee is meeting their targets. As your remote staff prove their capabilities, there should also be clear job progression, with increased responsibility and autonomy.

Limit “crunch-time”

In any business there will be periods where workloads are high, deadlines are tight, and it’s all hands on deck. But this shouldn’t be business as usual, particularly for your remote employees. Maintaining communication through these high-pressure periods is important. As is recognising and rewarding the work your remote team does during those times. When crunch time is over, allow your employees time to de-stress and decompress. That will help them  tackle the next job with renewed enthusiasm.

With Deployed, we assist you to manage your remote employees and deal with personnel issues as they arise. By providing support to both you and your employee we help reduce turnover and allow you to create outsourcing success.