Employees that Quit and Stay

Q. What is the relationship of employee engagement to employee turnover? Do those with the highest levels of engagement have the lowest turnover, and those with low engagement have the highest turnover? A. The answer may surprise you! First, let's look at the three factors of engagement: Motivation, Effectiveness, and Satisfaction. Engagement involves a combination of all three. Keep in mind, that it is possible to be satisfied, yet not be motivated or effective. This combination can be dangerous! Research Research shows that companies with highly engaged employees experience significantly higher employee retention rates. Additionally, overall effectiveness and profitability improve dramatically with highly engaged employees. However, we continue to find some interesting results on just who is leaving the organization. The chart below shows the results of an engagement study we recently conducted with a large technology company. These results are quite typical of results we find in other organizations. We compared the turnover rates of departments and divisions against their corresponding engagement results based on their employee engagement survey. High Engagement = Lower Turnover We found that those departments where survey scores indicated low levels of engagement had average annual attrition rates of 11.30%. As we suspected, attrition rates for highly engaged divisions were significantly lower (5.88%), a difference of 5.42%. For this particular company, that difference was a huge cost savings. This result did not surprise us, as we typically see even larger differences in most of the companies with which we work. Who's Leaving? What did surprise this company, however, was that those departments with average levels of engagement had higher turnover (13.18%) than even those departments with poor levels of engagement. So, this brings up the question, who's leaving? In this and other organizations, we find that those leaving at the greatest rate are not those who are the least engaged. It is those with average engagement, the passively engaged fence-sitters, that walk. These are the employees who are the solid workers that contribute to the organization. They are valuable intellectual assets. They leave because they are "looking for something better". When they walk out the door, their knowledge and abilities walk out the door with them, and at a very high cost. Quit and Stay Unfortunately, those with low levels of engagement are staying. Why? Because they've landed the perfect job! They are satisfied, and are collecting a pay check. The job does not require that they dedicate their minds or their hearts, just their hands. These employees mentally quit yet physically remain. Conclusion We clearly see that employees who are highly engaged are those least likely to leave the organization, and most likely to produce results. What a powerful reason to focus on engagement! We also see that many organizations fail to find ways to either help employees with low levels of engagement become engaged (a difficult task), or help them out the door. The good news is that by measuring and making some targeted changes, employees with average levels of engagement can often join the ranks of the highly engaged. With this comes the benefit of lower turnover and higher productivity.