Employee turnover — especially in the first 90 days of a new hire’s tenure — costs organizations thousands of dollars per year.

Think about it: you spend time and resources looking for the right candidate, hire the person you think will succeed, and lose money until that new hire is performing at 100 percent productivity.

This can be especially frustrating in front-line industries like hospitality where, according to results from CompData’s 2014 edition of their annual BenchmarkPro Survey shared by Compensation Force, turnover in 2014 was 27.6 percent.

When you’re losing one in four new hires, all the time and resources you spent go to waste. The worst part? You have to start all over again.

How do you get it right the first time? Here are five reasons you’re losing new employees and how to fix them:

1. Your sourcing strategies are outdated.

If your organization is sourcing most of its candidates from job boards, classified ads, job fairs, and other outdated sources, it’s hurting the chances of finding a quality hire. Unfortunately, emphasizing recruiting and sourcing from these outlets keeps your organization from developing a strong pool of qualified candidates.

The solution: Focus on online sourcing and creating an employee referral program that keeps your talent pipeline full of qualified candidates. Sixty percent of recruiters from Jobvite’s 2014 Social Recruiting Survey cite referrals as the number one way they find the best candidates.

It’s simple. Since your current employees understand your organization better than anyone, they’re the best source for finding quality candidates that will be a good fit.

2. The new hire isn’t actually as skilled as you thought.

Look, we’ve all been there. A candidate with “that special something” talks about how he’s done similar work in the past, is proficient in the systems your organization employs, and has used the skills necessary in other positions. He gets the job, underperforms, and you have to let him go.

The solution: Job simulations. Putting candidates through simulations that measure specific work-related skills and competencies is a reliable way to gauge their skills.

In front-line positions like sales, hospitality, and customer support, job simulations can help your organization measure candidates’ communication skills, along with their ability to multi-task and think on their feet. These skills aren’t always easy to assess during an interview.

3. Your gut tells you who to hire.

Many hiring managers rely on gut feelings and casual observations about a candidate to make important hiring decisions. While sometimes you get lucky, more often than not this method results in hiring candidates who aren’t quite the right fit.

The solution: Take advantage of the data your organization generates and incorporate it into your screening and hiring decisions. Use data analytics to develop hiring models and then continuously test them to ensure they are valid and improving your hiring and retention metrics.

For example, keeping track of which sources produce the best hires or the impact that an onboarding training program has on performance can help you make decisions about how to make new hires the most successful.

4. The candidate isn’t clear about expectations.

Many employees who leave in the first 90 days do so because the position was simply not what they expected. Either the hiring manager inflated the role to make it more exciting, or the candidate was expecting the role to be one thing, and it turned out to be another.

In both situations, the responsibility is on the organization to clearly define things like work hours, responsibilities, and the part the role plays in the organization’s success.

The solution: Review your organization’s job postings and make sure the roles and responsibilities being described match the realities of the position. During the hiring process, it’s a good idea to distribute a “roles and responsibilities” checklist to candidates so they are aware — from the beginning — what the job requires.

5. You’re only hiring for skills, not job fit.

In a recent study of more than 500 CEOs, managing directors, hiring managers, and other decision makers in various industries, Hyper Island found that 78 percent believe personality is the most important aspect of hiring.

Yes, a good candidate will have the skills and abilities necessary to be effective at the job, but if the candidate’s personality doesn’t fit the position — or your organization’s culture — the odds of them leaving in the first 90 days dramatically increase.

The solution: Pre-hire personality assessments. Combined with hiring simulations that measure work skills, job-related personality assessments can help you determine if the candidates you’re interested in have the right personality for the job. More importantly, they can help determine if a candidate will mesh with your organization’s mission, values and culture.

If you’re having issues with turnover in the first 90 days, think about whether or not your organization is making some of these mistakes. Fix only one, and you’ll make your hiring process more efficient. Fix all of them, and you’ll be on your way to lower turnover rates and increased productivity.

How do you measure a candidate’s likelihood to stay in the first 90 days? What strategies does your organization employ to reduce turnover in the first 90 days?

Photo Credit: bertrandmanagementgroup via Compfight cc