Turnover Rates
2314190
9 Posts
I work in a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed children with 93 employees. I was curious how our turnover rate, which usually runs about 16%, compares with other comparable non-profit agencies. Any feedback?
Comments
You too? Mine's called Manufacturing
Sorry, I couldn't resist!
In our shop, they are the ones fighting the good fight. Doing their best to solve problems without enabling. Ours is a 'feel good' place to work and we are fortunate to get a lot of community support. It really shows up around this time of year because people to reach out a little more during the holidays - wanting others to have a little respite from the battle. Acknowledgements and blessing like yours make the miles go easier.
I am going to share your words with some of our staff because I think they will appreciate hearing this from someone who is a total stranger (to them).
Our turnover is trending at about 75% this year. 2002 ended at about 85% and 2001 ended with around 120%. We went through an ownership change in 2001 which definitely affected turnover, but it is still something we struggle with constantly.
We are not a high paying industry, and even working with primarily "typical" children can burn staff out after a year or two. It is a physically taxing and emotionally draining job for our teachers, and the rewards often have to come directly from the children or from within.
As a company we do fairly frequent recognition to keep happy whatever staff we can: a rose for every employee on Valentines day delivered personally by a member of the corporate staff, card and small gift for every employee on Teacher Appreciation Week, Holiday gift for every employee in December. The gifts are pretty small (around $5) and we put a lot of thought into the letter that is delivered along with them.
We do lots of other things like quarterly company-wide training which is incredibly time consuming for the facilitators, but it has really impacted quality and teacher satisfaction.
Turnover is a struggle in most service industries especially in large cities where the newspaper employment classifieds are an inch thick and there's always another job around the corner with apparently greener grass.
There I go rambling again... x:D
It is little wonder that turnover plagues childcare centers. Affordable childcare concerns fly right in the face of combatting turnover and establishing wages that recognize the importance of the work that is done here. So many just look at the function as babysitting or 'warehousing' our young.
I see I am on a soapbox. If I don't stop now...
Parents pay around $150/week per child for full time care, and our teachers' average hourly wage is about $8. It's a highly labor intensive business, as you know. Parents want to know where all that tuition money goes, if not to teacher wages. Most of it DOES go to wages, but because of volume of hours, not high hourly wages. Add to that yet another increase (13%) in insurance premiums for next year...
Marc, you and I have drifted into our own topic now. Sorry everyone else - I'll be happy to listen to your sob stories about your industries too! x:'(