This week HR Review published two articles of interest to us here at Cullen Scholefield. The first was about the cost of replacing employees and the second was about the all too problematic age gap and how it is affecting our mature workers.
Beginning with the first, according to Oxford Economics and the research they conducted with the funding and support of Unum, one of the UK’s leading financial protection insurers, it costs on average £30,000 to replace an employee. £30,000! That’s over a year’s salary for most people!
Apparently when it comes down to it, the work and energy which is deployed in trying to find a replacement, process and train a new employee and figure out how to keep everything going in between, amounts up to £30,000 of your company’s hard earned revenue and time.
Wouldn’t it be better if you could save that money by keeping your employees? Oxford Economics report is designed to help companies understand the costs and implications of high turnover and also help them realise how they can increase retention through means other than financial rewards. You can download the full report here.
This report is right up Cullen Scholefield’s street because, as you know, our topic of choice at the moment is ‘love your people’, and loving your people and retention go hand in hand.
This brings me on to the second article from HR Review which also peaked our curiosity: ‘Brits feel their career nosedives from age 54.‘
This discusses the age divide in the workplace and focuses on how it is affecting Britain’s mature workforce.
British workers as young as forty feel that their careers reach a brick wall because of their age. It is the unfortunate truth that discriminating against age has become an ingrained behaviour and the discussion of it has been forced in to the shadows. Some employers may feel that their older staff members are too expensive or they may not see them in the company’s future in the same way as they would see someone in their twenties. This leads to younger, less experienced employees receiving promotions or better opportunities over their older colleagues which in turn leads to resentment and bitterness. This does not create a good working atmosphere and will most definitely encourage high turnover.
The best dynamic for any workplace is to create a rainbow of ages where different strengths are valued and everyone benefits from each
The Age Rainbow
other’s experiences. Cullen Scholefield is a prime example of a company embracing the age rainbow.
Take me, for example, I am the youngest member of the Cullen Scholefield team and therefore I am eager to please and at times a tad naïve. My problem is that I like to help people with their problems, but I haven’t yet learnt to realise whether my help is actually needed. Maureen has been trying to teach me that it is okay to say no and that sometimes it is the better option. I am slowly learning the lesson but I still find myself trying to assist with complex IT issues when I catch Maureen out the corner of my eye frantically whisper-yelling for me to stop! Without her passing on her experience and expertise to me, I could find myself spending my days trying to assist others with their problems rather than getting on with my job.
In return, I can offer my assistance in areas that I actually have some knowledge in. This does include being tech support for Carol’s iPhone (I should add it to my job description) but also bringing my own experiences and knowledge to areas like the blog and our social media.
Here at Cullen Scholefield we appreciate the strengths that people from different age brackets can bring to the team and we celebrate our differences. Our team meetings are always filled with a range of different ideas and a day doesn’t go by where I don’t learn something new from one of my colleagues or teach them something in return. We don’t resent each other because we don’t feel any of us are receiving special treatment due to our age, but rather that we are all benefitting from each others’ experiences.
Cullen Scholefield’s Age Rainbow