• Lowered productivity. In the 90’s there was a study that came out that highlighted that a new employee did not earn their full salary until they have been employed for eight months. This totally makes sense when you consider that the person who left was doing her role largely autonomously.
• Lost knowledge. Performing the tasks of a former employee may be easy, though it takes time to build the specific knowledge she/he had. It’s about knowing the people, the traditions, the location of relevant information, what the boss likes and a million other things that come from working for a company for a long period. All that goes away when someone quits.
• Remaining staff taking up the initial slack. Whilst this may not be a financial cost this is a huge expense on the overall wellness of your employees. As they get stretched thin, their quality of work goes down as does their satisfaction and engagement. And the longer they stay in their overworked roles, the harder it will be for you to regain their goodwill even after you’ve filled the vacancy.
• Training costs. Paid training costs are obvious. Though the expenses of having someone initially train someone is a huge cost, when you consider that the other person’s duties are not being performed.
• Interviewing costs. It takes time to go through resumes, talk with numerous people, do formal interviews (which take an inordinate amount of time), talk with colleagues, and figure out who is the best employee.

Estimates on the total of these costs run as high as 150 percent of an annual salary. Much less for lower level positions, but still significant enough to make retention a high priority for your business.
Sometimes staff turnover cannot be avoided, though when it can be, you should do everything in your power to keep the loyal employee. Loyal employees are loyal to your company. They work hard for their pay and are committed to your company’s success. Loyal employees may someday leave, but while they work for you, they do their best and often even put the company’s interests ahead of their own.
Not sure how to ensure your employees become loyal employees?

Office work politics can be a big drain on productivity and business morale. Some would argue that people seem to spend more time defending their back than they do actually working. In order to combat it, first let’s understand the underlying reasons:

• Some people have more power than others, either through hierarchy or some other basis of influence.
• For many people, gaining promotion is important, and this can create competition between individuals, or misalignments between the team’s objectives and those of individuals within the team.
• Most people care passionately about decisions at work and this encourages political behaviour as they seek to get their way.
• Decisions at work are impacted by both work-related goals and personal factors, so there is further scope for goal conflict.
• People and teams within organisations often must compete for limited resources; this can lead to a kind of “tribal conflict” where teams compete to satisfy their needs and objectives, even when this is against the greater good.

To an extent, some office politics can be good.  It can motivate workers to improve employee productivity and strive to achieve their best results, hopefully for the common good of the company.

At the same time, the wrong kind of office politics can undermine employee morale and leave employees frustrated and disenfranchised, with some really amazing employees choosing to leave due to the environment. The key to keeping office politics positive is to understand it and manage it.

The more management has respect, encourage an open line of communication and empower their employees the less office politics will be entrenched in the culture.

Employees who are focused on passion-driven work and collaborating with others, have no time to waste playing politics and / or take credit for others work as they are focused on making a difference together.

Are you ready to reap the rewards from empowering your employees?
Not sure where to start?