What Are The Costs of Marketing Staff Turnover?

Hiring and retaining skilled staff is always a high priority for managers who direct marketing functions. Marketing Department turnover has an impact, not just on the Marketing Department, but in other parts of the organization. For example, a lack of fully trained resources (trained in the company’s way of marketing) can force marketing projects to be delayed, which can lead to loss of sales or delay to the market with the formal release of a new product.

If we create turnover, then we face a series of costs.

Cost Categories
There are four major categories of costs associated with the turnover of positions.

1. Staff Labor
2. Non-staff Related
3. Training
4. Productivity

• Staff Labor Costs

The company expends labor costs searching for a new employee.  These include:

• Scheduling and conducting the interview
• Background check
• Processing paperwork
• Orientation
• Attending job fairs

• Non-staff Related Costs

Non-labor recruiting costs include:

• Advertising
• Drug Testing
• Associated costs and overhead allocations to manage involved departments.

• Training Costs

Marketing continues to evolve.  Consider, for example, Social Media that did not exist, even a few years ago.  The whole field of Inbound Marketing has exploded.  Staff needs to obtain new training and refresh past skills.  Training could cost up to 5% of the individual’s salary.

• Productivity

Even a well-oiled machine will hit a few bumps integrating a new employee.  A few of these items are:

• Employee not yet up to speed with department, division or company practices.
• Manager concentrating with onboarding the new employee rather than other duties.
• The usual smooth handoffs between team members require more effort to avoid dropping the ball on processes and procedures when a new member joins the team.

How Can We Avoid These Costs?
As managers, we need to be active in managing our employees and departments.  Key activities to help prevent turnover include:

• Letting employees know they did a good job and are appreciated.
• Team building and camaraderie activities help employees feel connected.
• A simple pat on the back and “thank you” do not cost anything but go far in the bonding process.
• Pitch in and pick up some tasks when the team or an individual is trying their best to meet a deadline, but cannot meet it without support.
• Provide new challenges and opportunities to expand knowledge and learn new skills.

The Takeaway
Turnover of staff is natural, over the course of time.  We can minimize turnover by engaging, encouraging and rewarding staff as part of our day-to-day management.

That is my thinking.  Now over to you:

• How do you minimize marketing staff turnover?
• What kinds of recognition or rewards do you employ?
• Do you find that Marketing turnover is similar or dissimilar to other staff types?

Share your thoughts and comments in the Comments field below.  Thanks!

Copyright © 2010 Rob Berman