We recently conducted linkage research for a client who wanted to understand the drivers of why people left their company (voluntary turnover) and employee engagement. We also helped them determine what makes managers effective and whether higher performing managers did a better job of retaining their employees. Taking the results of multiple surveys (engagement survey, exit survey) and other data (manager performance ratings and actual turnover) we helped them answer these questions.

  One of the findings that immediately stuck out was the small difference in retention rates between managers of highly engaged and less engaged employees. However, when we looked at data over time, we see that the managers with more engaged employees had better retention rates. The long term impact of high performing managers on creating engaged and committed employees is substantial and in the short run may be missed. This is why it is important to try to integrate longitudinal data in your analysis when possible.
 

Link to more Case Studies

To Identify or Not to Identify - that is the question.

When we plan projects with new or existing clients we are often asked about identifying employee responses. The technology allows you to easily do so. However, the answer isn't as straightforward. If its your first survey, we highly recommend considering not to identify responses - that is, send a single url to all employees so that there is no way to track individual responses. If you have a history of successful surveying, then you may want to consider an identified survey if the following conditions exist:
- You commit to reporting results at the group level (typically 10 respondents, can be lower)
- You avoid using individual identifying information such as an employee ID to log-in to the survey.
- If possible, you use a third party to administer the survey so that there's a buffer to maintain confidentiality.

There are some benefits to identified surveys. I'll share these with you next week.

Our blog is back. After taking a brief hiatus and a delayed new year's resolution, we'll bring you more on employee and customers metrics thoughts via the Critical Metrics Blog.

At a recent dinner I was speaking with a business owner about what we do and how we can use employee surveys to reduce turnover. We then starting talking about how to calculate turnover and the differences between voluntary and involuntary turnover as well as regrettable and forgettable turnover.

Its not just about how many people leave (turnover), its about how many people leave on their own (voluntary turnover) who you don't want to leave (regrettable turnover). There is such a thing as functional turnover - you may have made a bad hire and you want someone to leave or ask them to (forgettable turnover).

The link below has some useful definitions of turnover in case you need additional references.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnover_%28employment%29