From the desk of Jennifer Beck: Sr. Vice President of Research & Consulting
18 months ago, I wrote about the country reopening post Covid-19, and the need for HR leaders to take stock of their response to the pandemic – to ensure they had the tools to make quick, evidence-based decisions. Today, the question remains: Do you have the data you need to make evidence-based talent decisions? Covid-19 hasn’t left our newsfeeds and we have a new labor environment to contend with. Take the time to review your People Analytics strategy and determine if you are collecting the data you need to navigate current challenges with the labor market.
4 Employee Experience Resources
- Voluntary and Early Turnover Data: With many companies experiencing record high turnover, how well are you tracking it? Do you understand who is leaving and where? Are these largely individual contributors or are you losing managers and high potential resources? When does engagement start to drop? It may feel like you are losing talent but having data to back up that gut-feeling will help guide you to solutions for stemming the loss.
- Exiting Employee Data: A follow up to turnover data is understanding why people are leaving. A standardized data collection process, either through qualitative interviews or exit surveys, will help you understand not only why people choose to leave, but also how you are stacking up against competitors.
- Onboarding Data: Similarly, do you have information on how well the onboarding experience is going? How quickly are you engaging your employees? Your training and development team may need to know how to tweak the training process for new hires. Your HRBPs may need to know how to alter the orientation experience. And your recruiting team may need to know what were the key factors that attracted new hires to the organization. All these questions can be answered in a short onboarding survey.
- Declining Applicant Data: Understanding who declines to work for the organization and why is often overlooked. Two things are important here. The first is understanding who these people are (demographics, as well as their contact information). Not only will it give you a potential list of hires to reach out to in the future, but they can also give insight into your recruitment process. This is the second piece – consider doing qualitative declining applicant interviews to understand how well your recruitment process is working, and why applicants choose to go somewhere else.
4 Employee Attitudes
- Career Opportunity: Do employees feel they can grow at your organization? This is a top reason for many employees to leave and understanding how well career growth is perceived at your organization can help you identify people development strategies to stymie talent loss.
- Burnout: Another high risk for turnover and disengagement is burnout. This is especially important among the manager/supervisory population who has experienced higher workloads and more stress as they were largely responsible for implementing and enforcing many of the new work rules that came with the Pandemic.
- Flexibility: Employees are looking for more flexibility and empathy from their employers. The pandemic has forced many to rethink their priorities and the time they want to spend with loved ones. Having an employer who understands the flexibility needed to go to a doctor appointment, take care of a sick child, or simply spend more hours with family is becoming a greater attraction and will continue to engage the workforce.
- Intent to Stay: In our research, we know that asking an employee if they intend to stay with the organization is a strong predictor of turnover. This just makes sense, and it is borne out in predictive turnover models. If someone says the plan to leave, they are highly likely to leave! Make sure you are asking this question in your surveys to identify groups of people who are at high risk for leaving.
Reach out to Spring International ([email protected]) for help on building these metrics into your HR toolbox.
