Employee Retention Tools: Employee Turnover Analytics and Employee Surveys 
Richard A. Blocker, Ph.D.
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The Challenge and Potential of Employee Surveys

Surveys are a much different animal than turnover analytics.  Surveys are best used to follow and strengthen an employee retention database that has already collected months of turnover data at the nursing home. Surveys involve the use of personal questionnaires that group employee attitudes into work-related clusters for statistical analysis. Surveys can be performed on a regular basis but they are helpful in getting answers during a business crisis as well. Surveys can underscore the value of existing management policies that are working to support solid employee retention. However, surveys also require employee cooperation and disclosure.

Employee participation is necessary to get valid or “true” surveys. This can be a long reach for facilities in the middle of a protracted turnover episode or other business crisis. A successful survey campaign requires that the targeted group of employees embrace the shared value of the survey process. Survey respondents will want to know just how vigorously their privacy will be protected. Getting good employee participation requires that management deal directly with the privacy concerns of staff.  Unless privacy and anonymity are addressed with convincing management assurances, employees are likely to hold back on their survey responses. 

Privacy and Anonymity

An employee wishing to avoid real or imagined risk as a survey respondent may simply complete a survey with neutral or minimal survey responses. In order to make credible privacy assurances, employers must first be capable of creating privacy in the survey process. There are effective means of accomplishing this anonymity. The need for privacy can be served by bringing in a third party who can guarantee anonymity.  Because of these complexities, a good survey program will initially require psychometric design skills that are not likely available on site or at the corporate office. 

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At their best, employee surveys have the flexibility to seek out unique answers to unique questions in a unique workplace. In spite of the preparation demands, the attitudes and anxieties shared by a large number of employees can guide the administrator toward a potentially sweeping and cost-effective turnover remedy. 

What surveys have in common is that they go beyond turnover analytics to provide a specific range of different work place metrics that simply cannot be found by any other source. Surveys can reveal both weakness and strengths in current business policy.

However, as surveys identify specific problems and management takes subsequent action, only turnover analytics will ultimately demonstrate the practical effectiveness of specific management actions generated originally by survey data. 

Survey responses can explain some or all of employee loss. With experience and enough monthly data, survey results can find and predict local cyclical patterns that might be associated with a sharp increase or decrease in employee turnover. Surveys can also aid the administrator in anticipating seasonal turnover so that preparations can be made to protect business stability. Surveys also have drawbacks:

First, a downside of using surveys is that  the cost can add up quickly, particularly with inexperience. A poorly planned campaign can result in the repeated administration of poorly developed survey content or the loss of useful survey data to inadequate staff preparation.

Surveys ask Unique Questions

And provide
Unique Answers

Second, hiring a consultant or buying special survey software can quickly add costs. However, in the context of a turnover episode, there is little time for a half-hearted or poorly planned survey campaign. A consultant or trained specialist may be necessary to bring in the special skills needed to develop, administer and interpret survey tools. For most businesses, employee surveys initially require consultants or the input of individuals with a special set of skills. For this reason, it is sound practice to invest first in developing solid turnover analytics rather than tie up business resources with employee surveys too early in the development of the project.

 Conclusion

Administrators will find that a combination of in-house turnover analytics and the range of employee surveys are game-changing employee retention tools. Together, the two approaches can identify most problems, point to remedies, and evaluate the incremental success of adaptive business strategies. A monthly turnover analysis program can get started immediately without the cost or complexity of employee surveys.  A good place to begin is for the administrator to simply collect and study monthly turnover analytics. By learning to interpret the data, the administrator can gain the experience necessary to select additional components as needed. Short of a business emergency, employee survey technologies can wait until there is more business experience and until the workforce can learn to accept the common benefit of the retention project. 

The potential of employee loss to cripple a business is well documented in nursing care research and is well known to most veteran nursing home administrators. However, it is also true that monitoring and adapting to turnover analytics as an administrator will likely save an extraordinary amount of business revenue.  No method will entirely prevent employee loss but adding a turnover retention program to the business will likely prevent those crippling turnover episodes. In addition, effective employee retention efforts will free up revenues that can be turned back into a healthier, a more successful business with dramatically more satisfied employees and customers.