Just a couple of days prior, ‘Teresa’ posed an intriguing question to me.
“I came across your website and felt persuaded by your evident enthusiasm for testing. In our company, it’s been particularly challenging to retain the exceptional testers within the testing department. Most highly experienced testers always seem to be eager for a shift, keen to escape from testing for some reason. I’d be extremely interested in hearing any recommendations you might have for maintaining exceptional testers within their testing roles.”
Recommended IPTV Service Providers
- IPTVGREAT – Rating 4.8/5 ( 600+ Reviews )
- IPTVRESALE – Rating 5/5 ( 200+ Reviews )
- IPTVGANG – Rating 4.7/5 ( 1200+ Reviews )
- IPTVUNLOCK – Rating 5/5 ( 65 Reviews )
- IPTVFOLLOW -Rating 5/5 ( 48 Reviews )
- IPTVTOPS – Rating 5/5 ( 43 Reviews )
What You Will Discover:
How To Retain Skilled Testers in Testing Roles?
Teresa, to start with, I’ll first tackle the serious problem of high employee turnover among all staff, and then explore “How to retain skilled testers in testing roles?”
Zero percent employee turnover remains in the realm of fantasy and unattainable in today’s competitive environment. Some degree of turnover is acceptable, but an escalating rate is a sign of profound issues within a company.
Although I’m not a human resources professional with strategies to reduce turnover, I will suggest some general measures from an employee’s perspective that might help to somewhat mitigate this turnover rate.
These measures would apply to every corporation and employee. Moreover, considering we’re discussing Software Testing, I’ll concentrate more on ways to retain skilled testers in their roles.
I’ll delve into each solution that can potentially help maintain a low turnover rate. Please prepare yourself as this will be an extensive article.
Who will find this article beneficial?
Company administrators, managers, team leaders involved in development and testing, and of course, up-and-coming testers who are the future leaders will find this article useful.
Effects of High Turnover Rates on the Company
- Loss of ongoing projects – as clients may not be content with the high turnover rate.
- Financial strain on the company.
- Costs associated with hiring new employees.
- Expenses for training fresh hires.
- Time required for the onboarding of new projects.
- Increased workloads for existing staff.
- Diminished productivity among employees due to inconsistent work and overtime.
These represent some significant disadvantages of a high attrition rate.
How to Decrease Turnover Rates?
We should start by understanding the underlying reason for “why does an employee quit the company?” The primary reason tends to be “insufficient recognition for their hard work”. If the company isn’t concerned about employees’ welfare, why should the employees remain there?
Remember, a larger paycheck isn’t necessarily the solution! Current employees are more focused on their quality of life and familial needs.
Possible Solutions to High Attrition:
- Recruit the right people for the right roles.
- Comprehend employees’ needs and cater to them.
- Show them respect.
- Always acknowledge and commend good performance.
- Solicit regular employee feedback and take appropriate actions.
- Offer opportunities for advanced learning and skill development.
- It’s preferable to become more employee-centric.
- Maintain a pleasant work environment.
- Provide opportunities for career advancement.
- Appreciate employees’ creative inputs.
- Job security.
The final one is critical. Your employees should feel secure about their job stability. If you can’t provide job security or at least a sense of it in your employees’ mind, your company justifies a high attrition rate.
Feasible Solutions
Below are some single-liner solutions. Let’s explore some practical approaches.
#1) Motivation: Any software team should comprise highly motivated and skilled individuals. Inspirational motivation arises from effective leadership. Competent leadership, demonstrated by team leaders and managers, can help reduce the attrition rate.
In my career, I’ve noticed that employees often leave companies due to issues with their supervisors. Unrealistic demands or lack of motivation and leadership can force employees to reconsider their position and career path. Therefore, leaders need to motivate and encourage their teams when employees lose all hope.
#2) Increased Compensation: Offer them a competitive salary package and benefits.
#3) Fun at Work: As mentioned, money isn’t always the solution, fun at the workplace is essential too. Just a hefty paycheck alone can’t motivate the team if you don’t promote a fun culture within the company.
I believe in a “Work hard, play hard” ethos, so schedule some sporting events, outdoor expeditions, different contests among various teams, etc… There could be numerous such activities that act as refreshing breaks for employees.
#4) Support to Establish a Stable Personal Life:
This refers to aiding employees in maintaining stability in their lives. Granted, this is not a straightforward task, but the company can contribute by providing health insurance and medical facilities. Housing is a top priority for most employees. Therefore, assist them in finding suitable accommodation.
‘Teresa’, you asked about maintaining testers in prime roles. Therefore, let’s discuss the issues faced by testers.
What are common grievances of Testers?
- “Developers often exhibit ego as they consider themselves superior to testers.”
- “The tester is blamed for every error.”
- “Testers are faulted for schedule delays.”
- “Testers don’t receive appropriate recognition.”
- “Management doesn’t regard them at par with developers.”
These are common complaints from testers that make them feel insecure in their roles, impacting their daily performance, and potentially leading to a high attrition rate.
Management needs to address these concerns promptly to prevent testers from leaving the company. The solution is to organize your teams effectively, facilitating enhanced communication between developers, testers, and management. This would lead to a better understanding and address the needs of testers.
Listed below are some critical steps that can help retain skillful Talented Testers in their roles:
#1) Impart Training: Train all your testers. Provide them training for free, if not feasible then at an affordable cost. Make other remote courses, seminars, and books available for study. Sponsor and assist them in achieving Software Testing Certifications.
#2) Recognize Exceptional Work: Focus less on the number of bugs and instead on their quality and acknowledge those testers who are diligently seeking them out. Regularly make positive comments about exemplary work by the team.
Reward testers for discovering high-quality bugs. Maintain weekly or monthly competitions like “Bug of the week” to acknowledge the testers. This practice will contribute to building a successful Quality Assurance (QA) Team.
#3) Specify Clear Boundaries for Every Task: Your goals should have distinct boundaries and completion criteria. Tasks without a clear endpoint can seem monotonous. Ensure the team does not feel as if this testing work is perpetually ongoing without any clearly defined goals.
#4) Consider Each Bug as a Learning Opportunity: Don’t criticize testers for bugs that slipped through. Instead, use these bugs as learning opportunities. Help them understand why they missed that bug. In this manner, they can learn from their mistakes and will likely not repeat the same error, at least for the same bug.
#5) Avoid Making Testing a Repetitive Responsibility: Often, we lose interest in performing the same task repetitively. The tester’s job involves several repetitive tasks. Therefore, ensure that work distribution doesn’t lead to any tester executing the same test case repetitively in any project.
Rotate the testing work among the team; this way, the team will gain knowledge of the entire product, thereby helping them to find more bugs. An effective solution to prevent repetitive work is to rotate experienced teams internally across various projects.
#6) Foster a Positive Relationship Between Testers and Developers: Testers need encouragement and support to find an increasing number of bugs to ensure a bug-free final release. Form a cohesive team of testers and developers. Treat everyone equally.
#7) Don’t Forget to Celebrate: Celebrate every moment of accomplishment. This will help to foster a robust team spirit. Organize product launch parties to recognize such achievements.
Conclusion
Express your gratitude to those employees who work earnestly. This is key to a thriving business. Show your employees that you are committed to meeting their needs.
These are my personal suggestions to keep excellent employees (Testers) in their positions. While I’m not an HR professional, I’ve outlined everything that, from an employee’s perspective, helps to remain on the job.
We are interested in your opinions on “What keeps you on the job?” You are welcome to share your individual ideas, your expectations from employers, or any personal experiences concerning this subject.
If you are not yet a regular reader of this site, we recommend you subscribe so you won’t miss a single update on Software Testing. Click here to receive new articles directly in your mailbox!