Employee Retention - Is HR Prepared for the "Turnover Crisis?"

Employers haven't worried much about employee turnover during the last few years' recession, but a recent article published by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) outlines why 2012 is seeing employees become more daring and why HR professionals are about to face an employee-turnover crisis.

Acccording to new studies, people are apparently feeling over-worked and under-paid. Hmmm. I hope they didn't spend too much money on these ground-breaking studies. Regardless, one study reveals "a whopping 84 percent of employees" in the US and Canada are planning to look for a new job in 2012. Another shows 30% of employers...yes thirty...lost top performers in 2011, with 43% concerned their top talent would jump ship this year. The price tag to replace an employee? Replacement, including training and loss of productivity, ranges from 90% to 200% of an employee's annual salary, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Ouch.

So what's HR to do? Track. Analyze. Predict. According to the SHRM article, companies collect a lot of data, but knowing how to use it to actually retain employees is something most companies do really badly. William Wolf, managing director and global head of talent development at Credit Suisse in New York, recommends investing in "people analytics" to uncover the real, underlying reasons your employees are leaving.

I'm sure there are others, but my personal favorite "people analytics" expert is Gregg Lederman. He's helped hundreds of companies with their employee retention issues, and over 60% of his clients are listed on a Best Places to Work list. Gregg also developed the Employee ENGAGED Index, which is the only tool available for measuring employee engagement that can be broken down by location, department and job function.

So how do you measure how ENGAGED your workforce is? 

For more information on Gregg contact me at amy@thestandardovation.com | 913.498.9773 or visit his web page at 
http://www.thestandardovation.com/gregg_lederman.html