Episode 804 – How to Understand Your Churn Rate and What to Do About it
Welcome to the podcast Clean Nation! Today on the podcast, we have our very own Lindsay Bjorklund and Tracey Thompson here to talk to us about something we’ve never addressed on the podcast before-churn rate. This is a massive issue for many of you right now. They are going to dive into the two kinds of turnover, how you can fix your mindset to solve this problem, and a few tactical tips to get you started. This is great info for any cleaning company!
What is Churn Rate and Why Does it Matter?
There are two kinds of churn rates. Turn over for employees, and turn over for clients. Meaning how many clients are leaving each month and how many employees are leaving each month. In other words, the percentage lost. In our current climate, the most problematic of the two is the turnover rate for employees since it is so hard to hire right now. People are hyper-aware of the status of their employees and keenly aware when they lose them.
How to Calculate Your Churn Rate
It’s a simple enough process. You just have to take the number of employees you started with- say that number is 10. Divide the number of employees you lost-say that number is two- to get a percentage. In this example, that number would be 20%. Then, the last number you need to account for is any employees that you hired or onboarded that month. So if you ended up hiring two more employees that same month, you’d essentially break even, but it doesn’t mean you don’t want to continue to track it. It’s best to do a 90-day trailing average. Take the churn rate for the past three months and divide that by three. That’s going to give you a more accurate picture of what’s really going on in your business.
These numbers are important to account for even if you feel like it might be depressing to see how many employees are leaving. It avoids having the bottom fall out from under you without you realizing what was happening.
What to Do When You Have a High Churn Rate
The good news about having this information upfront, even if it’s hard to see because your churn rate is high, is that you get to be the one who has the control and influence over what you are going to do about it. A great place to start is with the culture of your team. If you haven’t taken the time to really create solid core values for your company and shared those and implemented them in the culture of your team, now is the time to start. By leading with core values, so many of the cracks in the system are going to be plugged up by getting clear with everyone about what the expectation of the team is and how to handle issues if they arise together.
This same strategy can be applied to either a high employee or high client turn rate. If you have a value-based team who are all there to do their best and see success, that is going to trickle down to a more positive employee experience and a more positive client experience.
Final Takeaway: Once you get clear on your churn rate, you are in a much better position to take control of how you are going to improve it!
Love the idea, but find it overwhelming? Want to learn the next steps like, what to actually say on the call? Jump on a call with one of our coaches and learn strategies on how to grow your cleaning company and start loving your job every day! Book here