Turnover can be very costly, yet it is often overlooked or poorly measured by many convenience store retailers. Studies peg the cost of replacing one c-store employee can be $1,500 or more and that ignores the opportunity cost from increased sales resulting from a well trained, stable, customer focused work force.
Many chains are quick to rattle off “our turnover is 125%”, but what does that mean? If you are running a chain you really need to be measuring turnover at a deeper level. First and foremost there is a major difference between voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary indicates that the job was not right for the employee and they decided to leave. Involuntary means that the selected employee was not right for the company; they either could not perform the required job functions or violated work rules and were asked to leave.
Once you measure the difference between involuntary and voluntary turnover, you need to determine the underlying causes and what can be done to reduce them. Measuring turnover by store, district, region, or by job function can be quite eye opening, yet many companies fail to analyze their turnover at this level. Well structured exit interviews and sharing best practices are two key ways to identify causes of turnover as well as ways to mitigate it that are already working in your company. With labor as the number one direct operating cost of every c-store retailer, understanding how to reduce turnover and maximize productivity and sales per employee should be at the top of every convenience store operator’s agenda.
