Most organizations find employee turnover frustrating – and expensive. The investment into recruitment and training is one factor. But the cost of lowered customer satisfaction or losing customers from dealing with less experienced personnel is incalculable.
What can be done? One thing is spend a lot of money upping pay and benefits to a point people just won’t leave. But that can be a tough sell in the executive offices. Two recent studies have suggested there is a better way…a much better way. 
1. Better Benefits Communications
Analyses shared within the Health e(fx) 2018 Insights Report reveal some unique findings on the benefit preferences shown by different generations. The analytics show the average stint for employees who are not enrolled in health benefits is 3.1 years versus 6.7 years for those enrolled in employee-only and 9.7 years for those enrolled in family coverage. The survey found that the length of tenure increases even more with better benefits.
In general, we know that the younger employees are accustomed to immediate gratification. They are more likely to shop for employers who can enable them to live the lifestyle they desire. They will soon dominate the workforce, forcing better benefits which can impact your budget – and the longevity of your employee’s tenure.
Clearly, spending money and effort on communicating and enrolling benefits got more bang for the buck than spending money on the benefits alone.
2. Put Voluntary Benefits Work to Work for You
The second salvo in the war on turnover comes from a recent study done by our firm, that specializes in benefit communication and enrollment. Typically, we include voluntary benefits when enrolling benefits for clients. Looking at the one-year persistency of enrollment in voluntary benefits and comparing it to the overall turnover for each group, we found a positive link between enrollment in voluntary benefits and lower turnover.
In looking at turnover data for one of their clients, an auto parts retailer with employees in every state, BenefitVision found that after two years, 76% of the employees who signed up for voluntary benefits were still employed at the company versus 52% of employees over all.
For another client, a nationwide household goods retailer, the numbers showed that 83% of the employees who signed up for voluntary benefits were still on the job at the end of the year versus 70% for the employees in general.
In both of these cases the results are absolutely clear, employees enrolled in voluntary benefits are significantly more likely to stay on the job than those not enrolled.
The Benefits Manager notes, “This is terrific. Turnover is expensive. The cost of replacing employees directly impacts our bottom line both in direct cost and in customer satisfaction. The combination of better benefit communication and voluntary benefits obviously has an impact.”
Doubling the Firepower
BenefitVision has a unique approach that not only boosts an organization’s benefit communication success and provides voluntary benefits; we do not charge the employer. The process doubles the employers’ benefit investment by substantially reducing turnover, without added expense to the executive suite.
Funding for this process comes by offering voluntary benefits as part of the menu of benefits already available to the employees. By using this approach, BenefitVision provides an outstanding level of personalized communication, more choices for employees to consider, and considerably lowers costs for the employer.
Turnover Turned Over 
The power of voluntary benefits to act as ‘golden handcuffs’ works across the board with essentially all of our clients,” states Ron Kleiman, BenefitVision, Chief Executive Officer. “Offering voluntary benefits that provide employees more options, combined with the impact of better communication, as evidenced by the Health e(fx) 2018 Insights Report, is a great opportunity to turn an organization’s turnover numbers right around.”
