The Business Case for Employee Volunteer and Skills Giving Programs

What if I told you that having an employee volunteer program could potentially save you money – say $1,000 to $6,000 per employee. Would you start one?  Or if you have one, would you take it more seriously? 

The average employee turnover rate of all U.S. industries is 15.1%.  In some cases, this turnover is healthy for your organization because you’re losing low performers (i.e. problem staff or those not willing to improve) and this can positively impact everything from employee engagement to productivity and profits. But what if the employees leaving your organization are top performers?

Replacing top performers can cause service disruptions for your customers and requires a substantial amount of financing, extensive training, employee workload balancing, and handling cultural shifts. None of that sounds good, but how exactly does it impact your company’s bottom line?  Well, for jobs paying $75,000 a year or less (which is about 9 in 10 U.S. workers), the typical cost of turnover is 20% of the employees’ salary.  For top-level employees it can cost closer to 150% of the employees’ salary. But let’s focus on employees that make $75,000 or less. For each of those employees leaving your organization, it’s costing you about $15,000. Read more...