Voluntary employee attrition can be costly for an organization, as it can result in lost productivity, lost revenue, and increased costs associated with recruiting and training new employees. By understanding the causes of voluntary employee attrition and using data to identify patterns, CHROs can reduce the chances of employee turnover by providing a better work environment and support systems. Some common reasons that employees leave their jobs include low job satisfaction, a hostile work environment, low pay and benefits, and lack of opportunity for growth. By understanding these issues and implementing measures to address them, CHROs can help to create a healthy work environment that will encourage employees to stay in their roles. This can include offering competitive salaries and benefits, providing opportunities for growth and development, and creating a positive work culture that is conducive to creativity and collaboration.
Analyzing and taking quick, appropriate action in response to your employee satisfaction survey data will help reduce attrition as your people feel heard. Employees often leave voluntarily not due to so-called problems, but the lack of timeliness or appropriate response to issues raised. Be sure to provide frequent reminders to take the employee satisfaction survey through different forms of communication to increase the number of responses from your team for a higher-quality data set. Engaged employees will be more likely to respond when it is first mentioned, while those who are indifferent, complacent, or disgruntled are more likely to forget, procrastinate, or ignore the invitation altogether. Emphasizing the survey’s anonymity along with a genuine desire to collect feedback of all types will help increase response volume for a more complete view across the organization.
Currently, one of the biggest drivers of attrition is burnout. Yet, burnout is one of the hardest riddles to solve, because employees typically quit before managers or coworkers even have a chance to identify that the employee was feeling burned out. However, one way CHROs can combat this is through data collected with software. We use an AI-driven tool (called Erudit) to gather and analyze data on employees' communications through existing channels like Zoom, email and Slack. The software then identifies trends and certain buzzwords in their messages, running this data through its algorithm to identify when employees are feeling depressed, lonely or isolated. When the software identifies someone of being at risk, it allows our team leads and managers to swoop in and take a more hands-on approach to managing that particular employee before they quit. This tool has been really effective for us in reducing churn during the pandemic.
Analyze the data carefully by department/function, manager, location, gender, race, years with the company, etc. Also review the data from the Exit Interviews. You will often find that there are 2-3 main factors that may be contributing to voluntary attrition that if resolved would significantly improve overall retention. The 2-3 factors could be different for the main groups/areas where you have high attrition so take a micro versus macro perspective. More importantly, look carefully at your recruiting process -- are you hiring top candidates, are you communicating all aspects of what the job "really is", do your hiring managers have effective leadership skills?
A data-driven approach to vacation planning allows for balancing workloads with the demand for holiday breaks. Identifying high seasons for vacation and work demand allows for introducing a sensible policy that doesn't favour those who know best how HR systems work. Collating workload utilisation data with vacation taking patterns is one of the best methods HR leaders can use to minimise attrition resulting from burnout and unsatisfying work schedules.
The information we collect from employees via surveys can support retention by identifying the issues that are at the root of attrition. Many employers send annual surveys that are complex and time consuming for employees, but the data that we get from more frequent, shorter pulse surveys can enable HR leaders to focus effort on programs and processes that support employee engagement as a continuous practice rather than an annual event. Pulse surveys seek input on specific topics with a few rapid fire questions that can be completed quickly and, because they are so brief, employers find that they have a much higher participation and response rate than annual surveys and can therefore act rapidly to remedy issues that could drive voluntary attrition, from pay to benefits to work environment and culture.
Pay inequities are one of the top reasons people quit their job. CHROs can leverage their compensation data to identify pay gaps in their workforce to proactively address voluntary employee attrition. By inputting compensation data, a CHRO can identify if a certain cohort of employees is getting paid more or less for performing the same work as a peer. They can also run a statistical analysis of how compensation compares to other competitors, or other geographical regions as workforces have become distributed. Upload compensation data, and a CHRO will have plenty of ways to slice and dice the outputs to inform compensation decisions.
One way CHROs can use data is to compare industry reports benefits for different levels of employees so the company can be sure it is offering the best benefits in comparison with the competition. It can also analyze when people use benefits and what benefits they use at different points in their careers.
One way CHROs can use data is to compare industry reports on salaries with internal salary data to be sure all wages and salaries of employees, along with their benefits, are competitive. Then, you can make adjustments to ensure they are to reduce employees from leaving the company.
CHROs can use data to reduce voluntary employee attrition by analyzing surveys on work environment and potential for growth at their company. A healthy work environment gauged through a survey, where anonymity allows employees to be more honest, makes the surveys more useful to those implementing policies. Surveying how employees feel about leadership and their own potential to move upwards can be great ways to motivate and assist in their professional growth. Utilized together, employees will feel less inclined to look for opportunities elsewhere.
Co-Founder & CEO at Hoist
Answered 4 years ago
As a part of employee stay interviews, include a qualitative survey which gauges employee satisfaction with managers, position, and the company as a whole. With regularly administered stay interviews, complete with this survey, you can correlate attrition with metrics in the surveys. By having that data, you can predict which employees might be at threat of leaving the workforce, while giving you the foundation to know how to rectify their workplace experiences.
First identify what employees are at risk of leaving and what factors correlate with attrition. Then use the same data to determine what factors work as interventions to best retain employees and designs ways to introduce those interventions in the workplace.