Does your organization have a turnover challenge? Are you finding yourself on the training treadmill – always running to train for the same things repeatedly and never getting to the actual development of people?
As HR professionals, it’s important to look at the story the data is telling you. Imagine what could happen if you did a thorough analysis of where your turnover was happening and customized an approach to meet the needs of the learner based on what bracket of tenure they’re in.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to do a learning turnover analysis and what tools you can employ to craft a strategy around this.
The first step, make friends with your HR systems analyst!
Next, write the chapters of your story.
Prologue – Benchmarks: Gather your main characters
Plot: How many employees do you have, what’s your current turnover percentage, and how many open positions do you have (vacancy rate)? How many positions do you have to fill if you include the current turnover rate?
Now, take it down one more level. How many employees are under one year in tenure, between one and three years in tenure, and over three years in tenure? Equate this in the overall percentage of the organization’s population.
Chapter 1 – Retain
The employees in this bracket are new hires. The sole focus of learning and development in this bracket is to retain them. Focus on the skills an employee must know to be successful, and then fill in other learning opportunities with engaging content around your company culture, values and purpose. This is a stay or fly zone – only train what’s relevant, and don’t overwhelm. Making sure you have a solid onboarding strategy and process in place is critical here. If you train more than what’s relevant in this bracket, you’re spending your training dollars in a way that may not pay you back.
Plot: Of the employees who are under one year in tenure, how many are no shows? How many leave in the first week, three months, six months? Based on your average rate of pay, how much money is turning over in each of the timeframes?
Chapter 2 – Invest
The employees in this bracket have been with the organization for one to three years; this is a pivotal point for some, as they are gauging whether the company is delivering on the culture and values promised during the interview and orientation. This is where they make their decision to make a career with the company or if maybe it’s time to try something new. Here is where you want to ensure you have a career progression and upskilling strategy in place. They’re ready for some advanced knowledge about the business, maybe even ready for a new role within the organization. Spend training dollars here!
Plot: How many employees are in this tenure bracket? What percentage of the organization’s turnover is leaving here?
Look at the under-one-year bracket and the one-to-three-year bracket. What percentage of the organization is between zero and three years in tenure? This will directly show what level of competence the organization is at in terms of learning their positions. If the majority of your organization is under one year, then the learning strategy should focus on retention; however, if most of the organization is between one and three years, the learning strategy should focus on investing in upskilling.
Chapter 3 – Engage
The employees in this bracket have been with the organization for over three years. This is where employees can become disengaged and productivity can suffer unless the organization engages them by enabling opportunities to learn new skill sets. This is your organization’s succession bench. Stimulating their learning at this place in their career is important for the future success of your talent pool.
To engage this population, the organization should have a strong reskilling strategy and a high-potential program in place. Look at the organizations’ succession grid, ensure that critical conversations are happening with low performers and that there are programs to support high performers who may be ready for the next position in their career.
Plot: How many employees make up this bracket? What percent of the total organization does this population make up? Of the organization’s total turnover percentage, how many are leaving?
Once you have crafted your learning turnover story, start sharing this with your managers and stakeholders. It will be an eye-opening examination of how turnover impacts the learning space and how learning and development’s seat at the table can make a difference.
This turnover story will also aid you in writing your learning strategy for the year or next several years, as it will drive your focused efforts and potentially help fund some of the initiatives you’re looking to invest in!
