Exit Interview Surveys & Employee Retention Surveys Identify Ways to Decrease Employee Attrition
Posted: Sunday, November 22, 2009
by Howard Deutsch
Quantisoft, LLC
Why it Makes Sense to Manage and Reduce Voluntary Employee Turnover:
While some employee turnover can be healthy for your organization, excessive employee turnover can be very costly. High levels of employee turnover often indicates dissatisfaction with one or more aspects of working for your organization, including ineffective managers and leaders, uncompetitive compensation and benefits, insufficient training, development and career opportunities, and other possible factors.
The high costs of excessive voluntary employee turnover include:
Costs for recruiting new replacement employees
Costs for training and developing replacement employees
Learning curve costs While they are learning their new job, learning about your products and services, about your organization and other important information, it often takes many weeks or months for new employees to reach their potential performance
The negative impact on customers while replacement employees are not yet hired and while new replacement employees are not yet fully trained and fully proficient
The negative impact on customers and employees covering for staffing shortfalls due to employee attrition
The negative impact on your organization's "employer of choice" reputation due to high employee turnover
The types of Employee Retention Surveys / Exit Interview Surveys Include:
Employee Turnover Surveys (feedback or opinion surveys of former employees). Employee turnover surveys identify why former employees left your company, where they went and why, what could have been done to improve their work experience and keep them with your company, and other pertinent information and insight. These surveys are typically conducted semi-annually or annually and are sent to all former employees that left your organization on their own initiative.
Exit Interview Surveys (employees complete the employee exit interview survey prior to leaving your company). Exit interview surveys identify why employees are leaving your company, where they are going and why, what could have been done to improve their work experience at your company, and other pertinent information and insight.
Employee Retention Surveys / Employee Turnover Surveys of Current Employees with a particular focus on employee retention. These surveys are highly effective for companies with high employee turnover throughout the organization, or with high turnover in one particular department such as sales or a call center, etc. These employee surveys assess key aspects of employee satisfaction and employee engagement, and the likelihood that employees will stay with your company for the foreseeable future. These employee surveys also identify reasons employees are likely to leave your company and what can be done to reduce voluntary employee turnover.
Employee Retention Survey/Employee Turnover Survey and Exit Interview Survey Metrics:
Employee retention surveys provide a wealth of information and insight regarding why employees are thinking of leaving or are actually leaving your company. Acting on this information and insight, your company can significantly reduce unwanted employee turnover, generating a strong payback on the surveys and bottom line results.
Employee retention surveys. employee turnover surveys and exit interview surveys are especially useful for organizations or specific departments experiencing high levels of turnover. For example, these surveys can identify what needs to be done to reduce turnover and increase performance of a company's sales force, a department that often experiences high levels of turnover.
Depending on your industry and the products and services your company sells, employee turnover metrics include these and other criteria driving employee retention:
Communications effectiveness
Support from and treatment by managers
Recognition received from management
Work environment
Adequacy of tools and information needed to perform the job effectively
Effectiveness of sales performance feedback and mentoring
Satisfaction with compensation and benefits plans
Satisfaction with career opportunities
Clear understanding of job
Job is what was promised when hired
Clear expectations for job performance
Availability/effectiveness of training and development
Company culture
Empowerment
Receptivity of management to employees' ideas
Competitiveness of company's products and services
Satisfaction with the job and company
Satisfaction with company direction
Likelihood of staying with your organization for the foreseeable future (in surveys of current employees only)
Willingness to recommend your company for employment
Benefits of Employee Retention Surveys / Employee Turnover Surveys / Exit Interview Surveys include:
Gaining information and insight for attracting and retaining employees
Reducing costly employee turnover
Identifying ways to increase employee satisfaction and employee engagement
Increasing "employer of choice" status
Increasing effectiveness of managers
Improving the recruiting & hiring process
Avoiding hiring employees who are not likely to be successful
Eliminating obstacles impacting employee performance
Improving communications with employees
Identifying drivers of employee turnover enabling changes based on employee feedback
For retention surveys of former employees, learn why they left your company and what they like better at their new company
Gathering suggestions for running your organization more effectively
Conducting an Employee Survey Final Thoughts:
Employee surveys generate significant bottom-line benefits and a very strong payback when action is taken based on the employee survey findings. Survey companies have the experience, expertise and objectivity to conduct these surveys well and to quickly provide reports that are full of actionable information.
Organizations that conduct employee satisfaction surveys, employee engagement surveys or employee opinion surveys can, to a lesser extent, also identify causes of employee turnover and what needs to be done to increase employee retention.
Howard Deutsch is CEO of Quantisoft , a full service survey company. Contact Howard Deutsch at (609) 409-9945 or hdeutschatquantisoft.com
Quantisoft Surveys
http://www.Quantisoft.com
Employee Satisfaction Survey Info
http://www.quantisoft.com/Industries/HumanResources.htm
Employee Retention Surveys
http://www.quantisoft.com/Industries/EmployeeRetention.htm
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