4 Warning Signs of Imminent Call Center Employee Turnover

Call centers are notorious for high turnover rates, which can be costly to businesses. Especially in the wake of the great resignation, it’s more important than ever to make sure your employees feel as if they’re working for a top employer of choice. 

It’s crucial to keep your contact center employees satisfied and engaged with prevenatitve measures and a strong company culture. Understanding the warning signs of imminent call center employee turnover can help.

Why Call Center Employee Turnover Matters

When you run a contact center, it’s important to keep in mind the high average turnover in the industry. The average contact center turnover rate is between 35-40% in the United States. When you factor in that the estimated cost of replacing an employee is 20% of an annual salary, then your call center’s bottom line is directly impacted.

Calculating your attrition rate can help you save more than just money in the long run. When you have a high employee turnover, you spend a lot of time, money, and resources on hiring and onboarding. 

As you ramp up new hires, your star performers have to pick up the slack, which puts more stress on them and contributes to the cycle of employees quitting. Additionally, it can also hurt customer satisfaction if they’re dealing with either undertrained, underqualified, or disinterested employees.

What Causes Voluntary Turnover?

There are a few common causes of voluntary turnover. This can apply to any business but is especially imminent in call center environments.

• Low salary
• Employee burnout
• Negative experience with company culture
• Poor training
• Monotonous and/or repetitive work
• Company not investing in the proper technology

By keeping these issues in mind, you can create a positive experience for your employees and cultivate a strong company culture focused on employee retention.

4 Warning Signs of Imminent Employee Turnover

When dealing with attrition rates, there are a few signs that an employee is on their way out the door. These are some common warning signs of voluntary turnover.

Low Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is a key indicator of turnover. If employees are disengaged, it won’t be hard to tell. Disengagement presents itself in a few forms, but keep an eye out for employees who are less productive and suddenly contributing less to team meetings or discussions.

More Errors & Missed Deadlines

If you’re noticing employees are turning in work that has more errors than usual, than this is a warning sign that they are disengaged. Additionally, look out for employees missing deadlines. This is a sign that employees are becoming disengaged.

Increased Absences

Another warning sign of a disengaged employee is increased absenteeism. Taking more time off than usual, especially if unpaid, is one way to spot this. If employees are showing up late that usually are right on time, then consider checking in and seeing how they’re doing. There may be an external factor in their personal life that is causing this, but it could also be a sign that they’re actively job hunting and meeting with prospective employers.

Low Morale & Negative Feedback

Have you noticed any attitude shifts in your top performers? Be aware of typically positive employees who start to act or sound disgruntled. To boost their engagement, check in with them and see how you can help make things improve.

Additionally, if you perform employee surveys and notice the feedback is more negative than positive, that could be a sign that it’s time to make changes or problem-solve.

How to Improve Employee Retention

Employee satisfaction is a major part of retention. Try some of these practices to improve employee retention and satisfaction:

• Foster an overall positive culture (with competitive pay, too!)
• Have a strong training program in place, starting at onboarding
• Develop a coaching and/or mentorship program
• Offer continuous, constructive feedback on performance
• Include wellness offerings in a benefits package
• Have an open-door policy and encourage frequent communication, including with weekly one-on-ones between an employee and their manager
• Invest in technology that helps your team scale and feel supported to do their jobs efficiently and effectively

Track Employee Performance and Attitudes with C2Perform

With C2Perform, we offer a full suite of services for call centers, including coaching, learning management software, quality assurance, and talent management.

With our talent management software, everything is kept under one roof so you can easily track employee performance and share performance reviews, set goals, use employee scorecards, manage attendance, create forms, and more. 

Book a demo today to see how C2Perform can work for you.