8 Ways Founders Can Improve Employee Retention

Sales is an industry with high turnover. That can be costly for founders, both timewise and financially. Here are tips to improve employee retention.

Key Takeaways: 

• The sales industry is notorious for high turnover rates, which are costly and time-consuming. 
• High turnover can impact team morale and company culture, so the right candidates are vital. 
• Prioritizing training, competitive wages, and flexibility leads to higher retention rates.
• Don’t waste your time – or drive away competent employees – with micromanaging. 
• Have regular check-ins with employees, and be open to allowing anonymous feedback. 

Employee turnover is costly and time-consuming, costing 33% of an employee’s salary on average. Those are just the financial costs. Unfortunately, the sales industry is known for its high turnover rates. This takes a negative toll on team morale and the company culture founders work so hard to craft. 

Read on to learn how they can improve employee retention. 

Hire the right candidates

Employee turnover is expensive, and it can take a toll on your company’s culture. Studies show it can take months or years to bounce back after losing key staff. That’s why it’s important to make sure you hire strong, qualified candidates: Anything else is a waste of precious resources. Finding the right candidates can be challenging, but worth it in the long run. 

Prioritize training

It takes tools and resources to be a top-performer, and talent requires nurturing to grow. Unfortunately, many salespeople don’t get the training they need. One survey on sales management training revealed that 41% of respondent companies had zero budget for sales manager training. More than half allocated some type of training budget, but it was for general management – not the training to lead a sales team. 

Training is an investment that can improve employee retention. Ninety-four percent of respondents to LinkedIn’s “2019 Workforce Learning Report” indicated they would stay with their employer longer if provided learning opportunities, for example. Not training your employees could cost you far more in turnover expenses. 

Pay competitive wages

Money talks, and that also goes for your employees. It’s great to find people with a passion for what they do, but the reality is they need a paycheck. Attracting top-tier talent requires being ready to pay top-tier wages. Starting salary needs to be around the average base, $46,010. Use this formula: 

$46,010 x Team Size + $73,457 (the average salary reported for sales managers) + your bonus and commission packages + tools and tech = the cost of your sales team

You may want to consider outsourcing your sales team, as managing an internal sales team may not be the best use of your resources.

Provide a flexible work environment

Offering a flexible work environment can help with workforce retention. Pre-pandemic, 96% of employees were asking for flexibility, but 47% actually had access to it. Working remotely is a top priority for younger workers, so keep this in mind as prior generations age out of the workforce. 

Flexibility doesn’t harm productivity, but can improve it. The World Economic Forum has noted that for most companies, productivity remained stable or increased during work from home protocols. 

Don’t be a micromanager 

When you hire top-quality talent, there’s no need to be a micromanager. It does not endear you to your employees, and it takes a toll on your schedule. Ending such practices will make you available for other important tasks, such as concentrating on scaling strategies. 

Have regular check-ins

Regularly checking in with employees can help you learn about their concerns before they get to the point that employees want to leave. Know that this should only take five to ten minutes, and the goal is to keep a finger to the pulse of the employee experience. This will help founders better recognize issues as they develop, so they can course-correct in a timely manner. 

Conduct annual interviews

You’ve probably heard of exit interviews, but waiting to gather such employee feedback is unnecessary. Conduct annual interviews to discuss improvements, relationships with management team, and more. It’s important to give your employees a chance to review your company. 

Allow anonymous feedback

Feedback is data, and it’s important to gather it as often as possible. Being able to receive feedback is critical. Allowing employees to share anonymously increases the likelihood that you’ll hear about important issues as they arise – especially if employees know it will be anonymous. 

Get help hiring your dream team

Making sure you have the right team, training them, and focusing on retention can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. MetaGrowth Ventures specializes in building high-performing sales teams, aiding founders in building out theirs by making sure they hire the right candidates. Our rigorous five-step hiring process allows us to filter candidates and provide you with only top-quality applicants. 

If you’re ready to ditch the daily grind of founder selling, contact us today. Scaling your business becomes much easier when you have a team of top-producing sales professionals to do your selling for you. We’ll take care of the hiring and training for you, so you can focus on what matters: growth.