Benchmarking labour turnover, 2005 (1)
The first of our two-part guide to labour turnover looks at making the business case for managing turnover, measuring turnover, and sources of relevant benchmarking data.
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Learning points Reducing voluntary labour turnover can improve the effectiveness of organisations and cut costs.
By taking the lead in developing a business case for the management of labour turnover, personnel professionals can significantly help their organisation improve its effectiveness.
Costs factors in the business case include the cost of replacing leavers, and the loss of their contribution, skills, experience and knowledge, including opportunity costs. In addition, there are costs associated with investigating labour turnover, and introducing measures to control it.
Effectiveness factors include the likely gains in productivity, performance and customer service with the greater retention of experienced staff, and savings in replacement costs.
Widespread misconceptions about the causes of resignations and the difficulties in controlling them mean that it may be desirable to include statistics on the actual reasons for employees' resignations and, possibly, examples of successful initiatives in other organisations.
Investigating reasons for leaving involves exit interviews and separation questionnaires among leavers, and attitude surveys, focus groups and feedback from consultation forums in respect of existing members of staff.
Many individuals decide to leave because of internal "push" factors; pay and other "pull" factors are typically considered later on.
Responsibility for recording labour turnover remains with personnel specialists. In most cases, records are detailed, but only one in four employers analyse them at the depth required to take effective action.
There are several ways of calculating labour turnover rates, including crude wastage, voluntary resignations, stability indexes and survival rates.
Benchmarking labour turnover rates against external comparisons can be done in several ways, including the use of clubs and networks, national surveys, occupational surveys and industry surveys. The Directory in this article lists many such sources.
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Managing staff retention begins with measuring it, analysing the data and developing an action plan, but, in many organisations, none of this will happen without first making the business case that resignations can be controlled in a cost-effective way.
Exerting control over the costs inflicted by unmanaged labour turnover represents one of the greatest opportunities for personnel professionals to contribute to the effectiveness of their organisations.
Each resignation letter tendered by a member of staff can be thought of as a bill or invoice - typically, of several thousand pounds - that the employer will have to pay for the costs of replacing the leaver and the loss of their contribution to the organisation's performance.
Redundancies aside, most staff who leave an organisation will have to be replaced, usually at considerable expense. Standard recruitment and selection practices are labour-intensive and often cash-hungry. The new member of staff will have to be inducted, given time to reach 100% efficiency and productivity and, often, further trained and developed over the medium and long term.
Over and above these replacement costs, many leavers take with them financially significant skills and experience that cannot easily be replaced in the short term.
The business case
Presenting a convincing business case for the management of an organisation's labour turnover is likely to require a cost-benefit analysis. On the costs side will be the losses to the organisation of unmanaged resignations, attributable to replacement costs and opportunity costs (such as lost business or reduced customer service), and the expenditure involved in tackling retention - both the initial investigation (see Action ) and the responses to the problems.
Costs…
Replacement costs for benchmarking purposes are available
from few sources, of which those provided by the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development (CIPD) are among the most notable. Its latest findings
are reproduced in table 1
. These show that each leaver costs
their organisation an average of £2,500 in recruitment costs and, more
tentatively, around £4,800 in overall replacement charges.
Opportunity costs are much more difficult to quantify, and few organisations attempt to do so. How much lost business can be attributed to the resignation of a particular member of staff? What is the impact on customer service? Or on the development of new projects and keeping current ones on track and within budget?
It is possible to undertake such calculations, particularly where a range of performance metrics is already in operation. They provide a ready-made and internally accepted apparatus that the measurement of labour turnover can tap into, such as sales statistics, customer satisfaction indices, new-product development plans and profit figures. Existing metrics also provide a bank of historic data, helping to identify any changes that might be linked to significant losses of staff members.
…effectiveness…
The effectiveness side of the cost-benefit
equation involves demonstrating significant, quantifiable gains as a result of
controlling labour turnover. This may involve a reduction in recruitment costs,
in induction and training expenditure, or a positive gain in sales, profits,
customer service levels, and so on.
There are often psychological barriers to winning acceptance of the business case that, strictly speaking, would not be addressed in a formal report, but which might nevertheless deserve consideration.
Many people in the organisation could well hold the view that labour turnover cannot be managed, and dismiss a business case as being unrealistic. Intuitively, they consider that a resignation is usually an unpredictable event, instigated by the individual themselves at a time of their own choosing and, as a result, one that cannot be foreseen or influenced by the person's employer. Or, they may be convinced that most resignations are attributable to economic factors - competitors being able to offer higher rates of pay - about which little or nothing can be done.
The report can be expanded to include evidence of the actual, rather than imputed, reasons for the resignations tendered by the organisation's staff (see next section). Rarely will pay represent the sole or main reason for resignations, except in some high-turnover, low-paying industries. (See Why employees leave for more information .)
The inclusion of external benchmarking information may also be of some use in convincing the doubters. There are many examples of employers that have been able to reduce the level of staff resignations and, thereby, improve their corporate effectiveness. These are often mentioned in the profiles of the winners and runners-up of the major annual personnel awards, in articles and news items in the personnel press and other media and, particularly, in our own IRS publications.
For example, a web search through the past year's newspapers via our parent company's LexisNexis Professional online service found around 30 examples of such initiatives. A training programme for sales assistants in opticians chain Dolland and Aitchison was focused on increasing sales, and won it a National Training Award. But it also contributed to a 20% reduction in labour turnover1.
Measures taken by motor industry distribution company ACC Distribution to comply with changes to the Working Time Regulations have involved introducing a guaranteed, and often higher, salary for its permanent drivers partially offset by a "huge reduction" in agency staff. Improved training and greater flexibility in working patterns have also been introduced. All these changes are associated with a cut in labour turnover from 40% to under 14%2.
IRS Employment Review is, of course, a prime source of such benchmarking information. In our previous issue, for example, we published a case study of mobile phone company Vodafone. It already collects and acts on retention data. "For the volume end of our recruitment activity, we have a touch point of new staff leaving us at around 13 weeks," the company told us. "By analysing the data, we have identified that attrition is considerably reduced if candidates have had an opportunity to visit their prospective place of work, see where they would be working, and judge the journey and so on3."
An experiment to introduce homeworking among some of its call-centre staff at the AA has been extended to other parts of its parent company, Centrica. AA's HR Director told us that the labour turnover rate among home-based staff is some 5% to 10% below the call centre average, and that productivity is between 30% and 40% higher4.
The starting point for an interlocking initiative to improve staff retention at London and Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) began some six years ago, when retention of the key groups of maintenance and development staff began to pose difficulties. Recruitment of replacements was problematic in the trusts' tight local labour markets, and it did not have the funds to improve salary levels. Instead, it has launched a range of progressive HR policies, including employee development and recognition schemes. We noted that: "Since starting out on its journey to improve staff retention, L&Q has succeeded in halving its labour turnover rate, which is now considered to be at a very healthy level for a housing association operating in London5."
Against the background of the acute resourcing problems facing the NHS, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children has reduced its labour turnover rate each year since 1999/2000, cutting it by one-third overall. The trust has developed a range of initiatives to improve retention, including greater internal promotion and career development, improving communication with student nurses, redesigning jobs and introducing new promotion opportunities, introducing a formal study-leave policy, involving staff in the introduction of a set of cultural values, introducing a staff recognition scheme, improving staff benefits, offering a range of flexible working options and improving its housing assistance for staff6.
…and action
The employer examples summarised above, and
the many other available case studies, illustrate three of the key issues
concerned with the management of labour turnover.
First, some organisations discover that actions intended to address one problem area, such as a training need, can have beneficial effects on retention levels. It is possible that something like the Hawthorne effect has taken place - where the fact that an organisation is showing that it values its employees by implementing a particular action can be almost as important as the action itself.
Second, initiatives to manage and reduce labour turnover levels often require a series of interlinked, mutually supporting actions.
And third, although there are themes common to many retention initiatives - including training, employee involvement, staff recognition schemes, flexible working - the measures must be chosen and tailored to the specific needs of each organisation.
Establishing the best means of managing labour turnover requires careful investigation and analysis. This takes time, money and staffing resources - all of which must be factored in to the business case.
Typically, organisations obtain feedback from the leavers through exit interviews or separation questionnaires, or a mixture of both techniques. Exit interviews involve a suitably trained member of staff, preferably someone who is not in a line relationship with the departing member of staff, who has a face-to-face meeting with the leaver and asks them a series of questions from a script. Follow-up questions are asked as necessary, and notes are taken.
Separation questionnaires involve sending the leaver (before or after their departure) a survey form to complete and return.
In addition, many organisations also canvass their workforces as a whole, through attitude surveys. These questionnaires aim to identify staff's satisfaction with a range of issues that have a bearing on their motivation and performance and, potentially, their likelihood of staying with the organisation. The survey should be repeated at regular intervals to track changes over time and monitor the impact of action taken to address areas of discontent.
More information on exit interviews, separation questionnaires and attitude surveys can be found in Facing the retention challenge and Don't leave us this way.
As well as consulting staff through surveys, many organisations also use more qualitative methods, such as convening meetings or focus groups, and obtaining feedback from line managers, trade unions and staff councils.
Finally, the cost-effectiveness of managing labour turnover - its business case, in other words - must take account of the costs represented by the actions required to improve retention itself.
Stability
Much has been made in the media of the weakening of the
bond between employers and their employees. However, as table
2
shows, the proportion of employees in the national workforce with long periods
of service (10 years or more) has remained the same over the past 16 years.
Most of the change that has taken place is concentrated in the group of employees with between one and five years' service, where the proportion has risen by six percentage points. The reasons for this are not known. There is relatively less turbulence among employees with shorter periods of service, so it is not likely that the whole labour market is becoming progressively more mobile and transient.
From the same authoritative source as table 2 (the government's Labour Force Survey), data are also available on the amount of turbulence within the workforce. This is amazingly high: well over four in 10 employees (45.5%) have been in their current job for less than three months. At the same time, there has been no appreciable change in this figure for the past five years. So, we can conclude that turbulence - the turnover or churn of staff from employer to employer - is considerable, but is not increasing.
This turbulence is also confined in another way, in that it is restricted to a relatively small group of workers. The figures in table 2 show that eight in 10 employees have more than one year's service with the same employer. It is likely that turbulence is mainly found in high-turnover industries, such as hospitality, where several workers can fill the same job in the course of a year, and in lower-level occupations, where employees move from industry to industry at the same level (such as cleaners, manual workers and security guards).
Push factors
For many employees in many sectors of the
economy, factors affecting their identification with, and attachment to, their
employer - "push" factors - usually contribute to a large extent to their
decision-making process about moving on.
Poor supervision (such as arbitrary or uninspiring management), few opportunities for training and development, and a lack of scope to make use of their talents and enthusiasm, are prime contributors to the weakening of an employee's psychological or emotional contract. Issues such as these are, to a large extent, under the control of the organisation. By addressing them, resignations can be influenced and controlled.
"Pull" factors, in contrast, tend to have more influence once the emotional ties between employee and employer have been weakened. The person begins to look around for another job and, naturally, compares it with their present circumstances. A jobseeker is seldom likely to move to a job that offers a lower salary, in particular, unless it offers significantly better career progression.
Because "pull" factors often come into play later on in the process of moving employers, issues about pay and employment conditions are likely to be uppermost in the minds of employees by the time they tender their resignation. Individuals are usually asked about their reasons for leaving at, or just after, this point in time, with the result that undue weight is given to these issues instead of the initial "push" factors that set the chain of events in motion.
Survey evidence
The CIPD regularly commissions research into
employee attitudes and the psychological contract. Its latest findings were
released in December 2004, and show that around 10% to 15% of employees are
probably going to resign from their jobs in 2005, with a similar proportion
considering doing so. In other words, three in every 10 people fall into the
vulnerable category of those at risk of resigning from their jobs.
Factors encouraging individuals to leave are often specific to their employing organisation and, to some extent, their personal circumstances. But, significantly, the researchers have identified a set of factors that they say explains 37% of the variation in responses between those intending to leave and those likely to stay.
The research confirms that "push" factors within the organisation have an important bearing on decisions to quit. "The most important factor associated with intention to quit is job satisfaction. It is followed by a cluster of factors, including the presence of a high-quality workplace, the state of the psychological contract, satisfaction with work-life balance, effective supervisory leadership and excitement in the job. All of these are negatively associated. In other words, where they are reported as being present, workers are less likely to say they intend to leave the organisation7."
Research published by Watson Wyatt in October 2004 also confirms the importance of internal factors in affecting labour turnover rates. It found that the main reasons for employees' intention to leave their jobs are concerned with career development and promotion prospects, the relationship with their line manager and opportunities to be creative. Watson Wyatt contrasts these factors with the "more politically correct reasons" that employees feel safe in offering, such as pay. It says that the survey findings challenge "the appropriateness of providing above-market levels of traditional rewards […] There is no material impact on employee turnover levels in doing so8."
How employers benchmark turnover
Just over a year ago, we obtained feedback from 102 employers about the ways in which they benchmark labour turnover rates. Our findings were reported in full in Measuring and managing labour turnover: part 1.
Our research shows that measuring labour turnover remains the responsibility of personnel and HR specialists. The records they keep cover not only resignations but, in the majority of cases, also departures because of dismissal, retirement, ill-health retirement and death in service.
Data on leavers are, in the majority of employers, accompanied by details of their department, length of service and type of job. Fewer than three in 10 employers also include details of gender, location, age, full-time or part-time status, salary, ethnicity or disability.
One-third of employers are unable or unwilling to analyse their labour turnover data by any of these variables. While the majority of employers undertakes some cross-tabulations of their leaver records, only one-quarter of employers produce analyses by all or any of the factors about which they gather data.
Lack of interest seems to be the reason why most employers do not analyse their turnover data at the level of detail required to identify potential retention hotspots, according to our research. In most cases, technical limitations inherent in their record-keeping or computer systems do not appear to be the prime consideration.
Once they have obtained their labour turnover data, just over four in 10 employers benchmark their rates against other organisations. Most commonly, to do this they use published sources of labour turnover data, personal contacts and informal networks (see chart 1 below) .
Difficulties in measuring and using labour turnover data are common, affecting almost four in 10 employers. The four most common problems are practical in nature (see table 3 ): inadequate record systems and software, and a lack of understanding in how to interpret and use the statistics.
Calculating labour turnover
"Labour turnover" is simply a term for the outflow of people from an organisation. Individuals leave their jobs for many reasons, but employers are usually most interested in those who leave for reasons of their own choosing.
This group makes up by far the largest proportion of routine departures, that is, apart from the exceptional occasions when large-scale redundancy exercises take place.
Crude wastage
Given that voluntary resignations represent
the main focus of interest, it would be logical to ensure that the data on
labour turnover rates measure this, and only this, type of departure.
Unfortunately, though, most sources of benchmarking data measure labour
turnover with far less precision, through what is known as "crude wastage" or
the overall separation rate.
A crude-wastage rate is computed by taking the number of all types of leavers in a specified period (usually 12 months), and expressing it as a percentage of the average number employed during that period (this average is usually computed by adding together the number employed at the beginning of the period and those employed at its close, and dividing by two).
Major surveys, such as the one published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), and most of the data in the CIPD's report, provide findings based on crude wastage rates. Inevitably, this has the effect of inflating the results. Differences between crude wastage and resignation rates are likely to be particularly marked when the focus narrows to specific occupations or industries.
Take managers, for example. The Remuneration Economics/Chartered Management Institute survey of managers and directors9 provides a detailed analysis of labour turnover rates by five different reasons for leaving. The overall, crude-wastage rate in the 2004 survey was 8.9%, but the resignation rate was only 4.6%, almost half this figure.
Frankly, although many published surveys rely on it, the crude-wastage rate is of little use as the basis for managing retention. To be fair, some survey compilers have told us that their use of crude wastage to define turnover is simply a pragmatic response to the fact that many employers do not have any more precise statistics available.
Voluntary rates
The calculation of the resignation rate of
labour turnover is much the same as for crude wastage: the number of leavers for
voluntary reasons in a specified period (usually 12 months), expressed as a
percentage of the average number employed during that period.
(Internally, even if an organisation's record-keeping is not sophisticated, many of the major exceptions to voluntary turnover can be established - such as redundancies, dismissals and retirements - because statistics have to be kept for legal or financial reasons. Deducting these groups from the overall number of leavers will produce a reasonable approximation of the rate of voluntary turnover.)
However, the overall resignation rate for the organisation is rarely adequate as a diagnostic tool, because it will gloss over any crucial differences between departments, business units, sites, occupational groups and other key variables. For example, a voluntary resignation rate of 5% for an organisation as a whole might conceivably include rates that range from 0% for senior managers to 20% for IT staff. The overall rate suggests that no action is required, while a more detailed analysis would reveal that there are serious problems in retaining the organisation's computer specialists.
It may also be worth taking into account the typical patterns of turnover's peaks and troughs prevalent among employers in general. According to the Labour Force Survey, it is highest among new recruits - stabilising after two years' service - and among younger staff, and those in semi- and unskilled clerical and manual work (as well as some shortage occupations).
Other indices
As well as analysing resignation rates by such
factors as service, grade and age, some employers calculate a stability
index, which shows the extent to which the
turbulence caused by labour turnover permeates the workforce. For example, even
in the hospitality industry, where high turnover rates are prevalent, some
employers have found that the same posts have a succession of recruits and
leavers during the course of a year, while much of the workforce is unaffected.
A stability index is calculated by expressing the number of employees who have a specified length of service (one year, two years, etc) as a percentage of the workforce as a whole. (As with the resignation rate, this can be broken down by department, grade and so on.)
A related method of computing turnover uses a survival rate. This is useful in focusing on the effectiveness of the recruitment, training and management of particular groups of staff - often, new graduates. Alternatively, it can be a means of gauging the impact of a change in recruitment and selection practices on retention rates, comparing survival rates before and after the modification.
The survival-rate calculation involves expressing the number of people who are still employed at a certain date as a percentage of those who were recruited in a particular year (eg, 75% of those recruited in 2000 were still employed by 2004).
Finally, resignation rates can be calculated according to the destination of leavers. This is a method much favoured in parts of the public sector, where turnover rates are often broken down into those moving within the same area (within maintained schools, or the NHS, for example) and those going elsewhere.
Some worked examples of labour turnover calculations can be found in the Acas advisory booklet Absence and labour turnover (free from www.acas.gov.uk).
Sources of benchmarking data
Note: further details of the sources mentioned below, and details of others not mentioned in the text, can be found in the Directory .
Labour turnover rates provide a visible and easy way of benchmarking an aspect of the management of people in organisations. While benchmarking is often considered to be purely an external process, labour turnover in particular lends itself to internal comparisons as well - between business units, departments and work groups, and, equally, over time as trends emerge and change.
All forms of benchmarking should be based on issues that are relevant to the organisation - in particular, the calculation method to compute labour turnover and the choice of comparators.
Typically, the benchmarking process is one of extremes: comparisons are made against a large data-set of statistics, or against just a few, carefully chosen, comparators. The published sources of labour turnover data lend themselves to the former approach, based on relatively large sets of statistics, while informal methods - such as benchmarking clubs, employers' networks and direct approaches - are more suited to the latter method.
Clubs and networks
There are several organisations offering
benchmarking services to employers, most of which use labour turnover as one of
the indices measured. The operation and use of such services have been greatly
aided by the advent of the internet and email. Many of these benchmarking
services have a strong presence on the web, and are set up for members to
provide benchmarking data online, conduct online searches of databases and
contact other members via email.
Some of the services provide large sets of statistics, often customised to a limited extent by sector, occupation or size, but most provide the more in-depth, bespoke type of service. Many offer several tiers of membership, based on the amount of support provided by the benchmarking agency. At their most intensive, some will provide full consultancy services where benchmarking is simply the initial phase of a tailored solution to an organisation's retention and other problems.
Published sources
Benchmarking data on labour turnover that is
available in a published format falls into three main groups: national surveys,
occupational surveys and industry surveys.
National surveys cover most industries and locations, and provide good headline results that plot overall trends. But they rarely have sufficiently large sample sizes to provide reliable rates for specific jobs, sectors or areas.
The Labour Force Survey is the largest resource, being constructed as to be representative of the whole population of the UK aged 16 and over. It is the only survey (apart from occasional opinion polls) that includes data relating to labour turnover based on information from employees, as opposed to their employing organisations.
The survey collects details on the length of time with the current employer, the number of people who leave their employer (and why), and the number intending to leave (and why this might be so). The findings can be cross-tabulated with such factors as age, sex, locality and occupation. On the down side, though, virtually none of this data appears in print, and must be requested from a helpline or approved bureau service. Another drawback lies in the survey's rudimentary analysis of the reasons why people leave, or are considering leaving their jobs.
The second largest source used to be represented by a series of (generally annual) government surveys that began in 1990. Unfortunately, this underwent successive changes of methodology, name and frequency until, in 2002, what had become the Employers' Skill Survey ceased entirely to gather labour turnover data. Instead, the administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland have sponsored their own skills surveys that include turnover data. The Scottish survey - Skills in Scotland - has been conducted twice so far.
In terms of readily available data for the UK as a whole, there are two surveys of labour turnover that are conducted each year. These are the CIPD survey, cited previously, which has recently been expanded to include recruitment and retention issues, and a survey covering absence and turnover conducted by the CBI10. In recent years, the CIPD survey has begun to provide some data based on resignation rates as well as crude wastage. The CBI survey, in contrast, offers only crude-wastage rates.
Occupational surveys (see also part two in the next issue) cover one or more related occupations; often, the labour turnover data are included in a salary survey of pay and conditions. Provided they are carefully conducted and analysed, these publications often provide the best source of data on specific jobs - coverage is patchy, however, and such sources are often expensive.
Industry surveys cover one or more industries or a whole business sector. These are often conducted by membership organisations for the industry concerned, such as employers' associations, professional bodies and some Sector Skills Councils. These surveys do not always provide as much detail as the occupational ones, and may not be conducted as frequently as the annual cycle of many national and occupational surveys. Unfortunately, the replacement of National Training Organisations with Sector Skills Councils has not been rapid or smooth, and many of their labour turnover surveys have been suspended. Many of these surveys used the People Skills Scoreboard methodology, which generally provided detailed data, in some cases linked to named employers.
There are also other sources outside this neat classification, such as surveys covering a local area, or those focusing on individual employers. Some of the latter are regular annual publications (such as the civil service statistics) or appear from time to time in reports and publications (for example, where a case study of a named employer includes its annual rate of labour turnover - some have been mentioned in the effectiveness section).
This article was written by Neil Rankin, editor, Recruitment & Retention, IRS Employment Review, neil.rankin@irseclipse.co.uk.
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The middle column shows straight recruitment costs (calculated by 46% of respondents to this CIPD survey), while the final column shows estimated costs per leaver (calculated by only 7%). All figures relate to the UK. |
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Occupational group |
Recruitment cost per recruit |
Cost per leaver |
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Managers and professionals |
£5,000 |
£7,000 |
|
Administrative, secretarial and technical |
£1,500 |
£2,500 |
|
Services (customer, personal, protective and sales) |
£2,000 |
£3,100 |
|
Manual/craft |
£750 |
£1,500 |
|
Graduate trainees |
£900 |
£2,200 |
|
All employees |
£2,500 |
£4,800 |
Figures relate to 2003 calendar year.
Source: "Recruitment, retention and turnover,
2004", Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2004, www.cipd.co.uk.
%
of employees of working age; spring of each year.
Source:
"Labour Force Survey", Office for National Statistics.
Crown
copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO
and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.
*Percentage of employers experiencing difficulties in
measuring and using labour turnover data.
Source: IRS.
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General |
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Source: "Recruitment, retention and turnover", Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2004, available free, tel: 020 8971 9000, www.cipd.co.uk. Scope: Public and private sectors in UK and Ireland, covering most sectors Technical details: Annual survey. Rates are analysed by industry (crude wastage and resignations), a matrix of occupation and broad sector (crude wastage). Analyses labour turnover costs by job. Also contains other survey findings about labour turnover. Latest info: June 2004, relating to 2003 calendar year (532 employers). Main findings: Crude wastage rate in UK and Ireland was 16.1% in
2003. |
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Source: "Room for improvement: absence and labour turnover, 2004", Confederation of British Industry with AXA, 2004, from CBI Publications, tel: 020 7395 8071, www.cbi.org.uk, price £70 (£25 CBI members). Scope: Public and private sectors in UK, covering most sectors Technical details: Annual survey. Analyses crude wastage by industry, region and workforce size. Plus trends over time, and data on reasons for labour turnover and employers' satisfaction with its level. Latest info: May 2004, relating to 2003 calendar year (530 employers). Main findings: Overall rate is unaltered at 15.7%. |
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Source: "Salary budget survey report", Watson Wyatt, tel: 01737 273850, price £245, www.watsonwyatt.com. Scope: UK Technical details: Reward report that includes labour turnover data by role/job. Latest info: February 2004. Main findings: - |
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Source: "Labour Force Survey", Labour Market Statistics Helpline, tel: 020 7533 6094, basic queries are free, complex ones are charged for. Scope: Individuals in UK aged 16+ Technical details: Quarterly, nationally representative sample of people aged 16 and over living in private households. Spring survey includes data on labour turnover (= employees not with same employer as a year ago). Each quarter's survey has data on length of time with current employer (tenure), data on reasons why employees left previous job in past three months, the proportion wishing to leave current job - and the reasons why. All of these findings can be cross-tabulated by sex, age, occupation, etc (sample sizes permitting). No published reports, apart from people starting or leaving main job in past 3 months (in Labour Force Survey Quarterly Supplement) and irregular coverage in Labour Market Trends magazine 1 (both free from www.statistics.gov.uk). Other findings must be obtained from helpline, databases or bureau services. Latest info: See previous column. Main findings: 45.5% of employees have been in their main job for
fewer than 3 months. |
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Source: "The Northern Ireland skills monitoring survey, 2002", Department for Employment & Learning, 2003, free from www.delni.gov.uk. Scope: Northern Ireland Technical details: Irregular survey. Analyses crude wastage rates by workforce size and industry. Latest info: Year to May/June 2002 (3,499 employers). Main findings: Average rate of 16%. Private sector rate has fallen
from 18% to 17%. |
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Source: "Skills in Scotland", Futureskills Scotland, free from www.futureskillsscotland.org.uk. Scope: Scotland Technical details: Second of the series of "Scottish employers' skills survey", analysing crude wastage by workforce size and industry. "Skills in the west of Scotland" provides western areas' results from 2002 survey (free from www.slims.org.uk). Latest info: November 2003, relating to year to May-July 2003 (3,006 workplaces). Main findings: Crude wastage has risen from 20% to 25%. |
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Source: "The benchmark index", Small Business Service, information from nearest Business Link, or tel: 08700 111143, www.benchmarkindex.com. Scope: Benchmarking service Technical details: Publicly sponsored benchmarking service for small and medium-sized enterprises. Its metrics include total crude wastage and leavers within six months of recruitment. Latest info: - Main findings: Labour turnover is averaging around 15%; 7% of
employees leave within six months of recruitment 2 . |
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Source: "HR benchmarker", DLA MCG Consulting Group, tel: 020 7796 6118, www.hrbenchmarker.com, by annual subscription. Scope: Benchmarking service Technical details: Joint benchmarking venture between DLA MCG Consulting and Personnel Today magazine. Data collection includes labour turnover; findings are made available through Workforce performance indicators report and other services. Some labour turnover findings are published irregularly in Personnel Today. Latest info: - Main findings: Labour turnover rates of 15% (all employers), 13.1%
(private sector firms with up to 1,000 employees) and 20.4% (more than
1,000 employees). Source: Personnel Today, p.54, 5.10.04. |
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Source: "The HR index system", EP-First & Saratoga Institute, tel: 01491 411949, www.ep-first.com. Scope: Benchmarking service Technical details: Worldwide benchmarking database service, which includes labour turnover data among 100+ performance indicators. Benchmarking available by industry, size, growth rate, region and tailored samples. Labour turnover data collected by involuntary termination, and for five length-of-service bands for voluntary resignations. "European HR index effectiveness report" is also available. Latest info: Database draws on more than 8,500 "organisation datasets" from more than 20 countries. Main findings: - |
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Source: The Benchmarking Centre Ltd, tel: 01494 558062, www.benchmarking.co.uk. Scope: Benchmarking service Technical details: Brokerage service, arranging benchmarking partnerships between employers, and providing training in benchmarking methods. Latest info: - Main findings: - |
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Source: EFQM Good Practice and Benchmarking Services, EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management), tel: (+00 32) 2 775 3511, www.efqm.org. Scope: Benchmarking service: UK and Europe Technical details: Range of benchmarking services offered to members of the Foundation (a not-for-profit quality organisation based in Brussels). Latest info: - Main findings: - |
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Source: The Benchmarking Exchange, www.benchmarking.org. Scope: Benchmarking service: USA and other countries Technical details: Internet and email-based benchmarking service. Latest info: - Main findings: - |
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Source: APQC International Benchmarking Clearinghouse, www.apqc.org. Scope: Benchmarking service: USA and other countries Technical details: Brokerage service run by the non-profit American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC), arranging benchmarking partnerships between employers. Latest info: - Main findings: - |
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Source: Best Practice Club, tel: 01223 355955, www.bpclub.com. Scope: Benchmarking service: UK and other countries Technical details: Brokerage service that facilitates benchmarking between members. Latest info: - Main findings: - |
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Occupations and industries |
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Source: "Salary survey of actuaries and actuarial students", REL 3 , price £785 (non-participants), £460 (participants). Scope: Actuaries Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by reason for leaving, level, function, region and qualifications, plus trends over time. Latest info: October 2004, relating to year to 1.9.04 (36 organisations). Main findings: Resignation rate has fallen from 6.9% to 3.2%. |
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Source: "Call centres 2003: reward and flexible working strategies", IRS with Call Centre Association Research Institute, IRS, tel: 020 8662 2000, price £77.50 (CCA members) or £89 (others). Scope: Call centre staff Technical details: Crude-wastage rates by broad sector, workforce size and region. 2005 survey was in progress at our research's closing date. Latest info: 2003 (124 employers). Main findings: Crude wastage had fallen from 24.4% to 15.0%
(midpoint rates). |
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Source: The UK contact centre industry: a study", Department of Trade and Industry, 2004, free from www.dti.gov.uk. Scope: Call centre staff Technical details: One-off 222-page study for the DTI that includes labour turnover data from a range of sources (including the above IRS study). Detailed analyses given for ContactBabel data. Latest info: May 2004. Main findings: Average labour turnover of 14.5%. |
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Source: "Contact centre survey, 2003", Watson Wyatt, www.watsonwyatt.com. Scope: Call centre staff Technical details: Labour turnover data and employers' perceived reasons for staff resignations. Latest info: February 2004 (120+ employers). Main findings: Turnover rate of 22.5%. |
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Source: "Civil service statistics", Cabinet Office, available only from www.civil-service.gov.uk. Scope: Civil servants Technical details: Annual statistics, based on complete count of one of UK's largest workforces. Latest published data give raw numbers for crude wastage by grade, department, gender, ethnicity, age and disability. Further analyses may be published. Latest info: August 2004, relating to year to 1.4.03 (total count of employees). Main findings: - |
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Source: "Public sector benchmarking service" (PSBS), Cabinet Office and HM Customs & Excise, www.benchmarking.gov.uk. Scope: Civil servants Technical details: Benchmarking brokerage arranging benchmarking projects between central government departments and agencies, and other public and private sector employers in UK and elsewhere. Also undertakes research on behalf of members, provides information, advice and networking. Maintains a "Good practice database". Latest info: - Main findings: - |
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Source: "Computer staff salary survey: volume 1 - management", REL 3 (as Computer Economics), available to participants only on annual subscription: prices on request. Scope: Computer/IT specialists Technical details: Twice-yearly survey. Turnover (given as annual rates) analysed by reasons for leaving, job level, job type, region, size of IT dept, sector, age and gender. Latest info: November 2004, covers 12 months to 1.10.04 (computer staff in 531 installations). Main findings: Resignations have fallen from 4.9% to 4.6%. |
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Source: "Computer staff salary survey: computer services & hi-tech industries", REL 3 (as Computer Economics), available to participants only on annual subscription. Scope: Computer/IT specialists Technical details: Spin-off from above survey. Twice-yearly survey. Turnover (given as annual rates) analysed by reasons for leaving and job family. Latest info: December 2004, covers 12 months to 1.10.04 (computer staff in 171 installations). Main findings: - |
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Source: "Salary survey of IT staff in the finance industry", REL 3 (as Computer Economics), available to participants only on annual subscription. Scope: Computer/IT specialists Technical details: Spin-off from "Computer staff salary survey". Twice-yearly survey. Turnover (given as annual rates) analysed by reasons for leaving, job family and region. Plus trends over time. Latest info: December 2004, covering year to 1.10.04 (computer staff in 171 installations). Main findings: - |
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Source: "Benchmark of salaries and employment trends in IT", National Computing Centre (NCC), available from NCC, tel: 0161 242 2121, www.ncc.co.uk, price £300 (£200 NCC members and £100 participants). Scope: Computer/IT specialists Technical details: Annual salary survey. Labour turnover (crude wastage) analysed by job, region, IT department size and industry. Latest info: October 2004 (358 employers), covering year to 1.7.04. Main findings: Crude wastage for all systems and support staff has
fallen from 10.3% to 9.4%. |
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Source: "People Skills Scoreboard", Construction Industry Training Board, 2003, tel: 01485 577498, www.citb.org.uk. Scope: Construction industry Technical details: Annual survey of construction industry in the People Skills Scoreboard series. Latest info: 2003, relating to year to 2002 (111 employers). Main findings: Overall rate had fallen from 13% to 11% in 2002. |
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Source: "Salary survey of engineers", REL 3 , price £450 (non-participants), £305 (participants). Scope: Engineers and engineering craftspeople Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by type of turnover, industry, responsibility level, qualification, function, region and age. Plus trends over time. Latest info: October 2004, relating to year to 1.9.04 (68 employers). Main findings: Resignation rate has fallen again, down to 2.0%. |
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Source: "People Skills Scoreboard for the engineering industry", SEMTA, www.peopleskillsscoreboard.com. Scope: Engineering companies' workforces Technical details: Survey in People Skills Scoreboard series. Annual frequency has been replaced by 18-month cycle. Crude-wastage rate shown for each named employer plus analyses by sub-sector. Rate relates to latest accounting year in each firm, ending between 31.12.01 and 31.3.03. Latest info: 2004, relating to latest accounting year (867 employers). Main findings: Crude wastage has risen from 6.9% to 9.8%. |
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Source: "Environmental health workforce survey, 2002", Employers' Organisation for local government, 2003, tel: 020 7296 6781, www.lg-employers.gov.uk. Scope: Environmental health staff Technical details: Crude-wastage rates analysed by job. Latest info: 2003, covering year to 1.1.02 (212 local authorities). Main findings: Overall rate of 10.5%. |
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Source: "Salary survey of financial staff", REL 3 , price £495 (non-participants), £290 (participants). Scope: Financial and accountancy specialists Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by type of turnover, responsibility level, region, broad sector, function and age, plus trends over time. Latest info: November 2004, relating to year to 1.9.04 (113 employers). Main findings: Resignation rate has fallen again, down to 3.4%. |
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Source: "The financial services salary survey", REL 3 , price £1,800 (non-participants), £900 (participants). Scope: Financial and accountancy specialists (finance houses and credit card companies) Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by type of turnover, function, gender, region, broad sector, age and responsibility level. Plus five-year overall trends. Latest info: November 2004, relating to year to 1.9.04 (19 employers). Main findings: Resignation rate has risen from 5.7% to 8.3%. |
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Source: "AoC survey of staff recruitment and shortages", Association of Colleges, www.aoc.co.uk. Scope: Further education staff Technical details: 2004 survey was in progress at our research's closing date. Latest info: - Main findings: - |
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Source: "Workforce survey results for nursing staff, midwives and health visitors", Office of Manpower Economics, free from www.ome.uk.com. Scope: Healthcare staff Technical details: Annual survey. Analyses turnover by reason for leaving, country/region and occupation; provides matched samples for changes since previous year. Latest info: 2004, relating to year to 31.3.03 (30.9.02 for Scotland) (338 employers in E&W; Scotland n/s). Main findings: Rate for leavers excluding NHS transfers rose from
9.3% to 9.4%. |
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Source: "Workforce survey results for professions allied to medicine", Office of Manpower Economics, free from www.ome.uk.com. Scope: Healthcare staff Technical details: Annual survey. Analyses turnover by reason for leaving, country/region, occupation and grade; provides matched samples for changes since previous year. Latest info: 2004, relating to year to 31.3.03 (30.9.02 for Scotland) (338 employers in E&W; Scotland n/s). Main findings: Rate for leavers excluding NHS transfers rose from
12.4% to 12.6%. |
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Source: "Sickness absence and turnover report", NHS Partners, tel: 01275 395463, free to participating subscribers, executive summary free from www.nhsp.org.uk. Scope: Healthcare staff Technical details: Annual survey, covering NHS in Great Britain. Crude wastage rates analysed by type of NHS organisation, occupational group and region, plus trends over time. Reasons for leaving and employers' measures to reduce labour turnover are also given. Latest info: November 2004, relating to year to 31.3.04 (146 employers). Main findings: Crude wastage in NHS has fallen from 13.7% to
13.2%. |
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Source: "Recruitment and retention of staff in higher education", IRS Research for the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association, 2003, tel: 020 7383 2444, www.ucea.ac.uk. Scope: Higher education staff Technical details: Results (crude wastage) analysed wastage by type of staff, type of institution and nature of contract. Latest info: 2003, relating to year to 9.02 (94 institutions). Main findings: Overall midpoint rate of 12.3%. |
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Source: "People Skills Scoreboard", Employers' Organisation for local government, 2003, tel: 020 7296 6781, free from www.lg-employers.gov.uk. Scope: Local authorities staff Technical details: Regular survey expanded to include Scotland. Crude wastage analysed by type of authority, and country/region. More detailed information available to participants only. Latest info: 2003, covering 2002/03 financial year (155 local authorities). Main findings: Crude wastage in England and Wales has risen from
13.5% to 14.0%. |
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Source: "National management salary survey", REL 3 with the Chartered Management Institute, price £630 (non-participants), £335 (participants). Scope: Managers and directors: all companies Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by type of turnover, responsibility level, age, industry and function, plus trends over time. Latest info: April 2004, with data for year to 1.1.04 (354 employers). Main findings: Managers' resignations have risen from 4.2% to 4.6%,
while directors' rate is down from 4.9% to 4.6%. |
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Source: "National management salary survey: smaller business review", REL 3 with the Chartered Management Institute, price £315 (non-participants), £190 (participants). Scope: Managers and directors: small/medium enterprises Technical details: Annual survey of businesses with annual sales turnover below £60m. Results analysed by type of turnover, responsibility level, region, age, industry and function, plus trends over time. Latest info: April 2004, relating to year to 1.1.04 (62 employers). Main findings: Managers' resignations have risen from 3.8% to 6.0%,
and directors' rate is up from 1.7% to 1.9%. |
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Source: "The retail motor industry pay guide", Sewells Information & Research, tel: 01733 468254, www.sewells.co.uk, price £149.95. Scope: Motor industry: retailing Technical details: Annual survey in conjunction with Retail Motor Industry Federation. Information on labour turnover data analysed by job. Latest info: 2004 Main findings: - |
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Source: "Salary survey of pension managers, consultants and administrators", REL 3 , price £360 (non-participants), prices starting from £165 (participants). Scope: Pensions specialists Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by reason for leaving, industry, responsibility level and age, plus trends over time. Latest info: February 2004, relating to year to 1.11.03. Main findings: Overall resignation rate is unaltered at 7.6%. |
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Source: "Salary survey of HR/personnel staff", REL 3 , price £495 (non-participants), £290 (participants). Scope: Personnel/HR specialists Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by type of turnover, plus overall crude-wastage rate. Analyses are presented by gender, regions, broad sectors, age, function, responsibility level and as time series. Latest info: November 2004, relating to year to 1.9.04 (109 employers). Main findings: Resignation rate has fallen significantly to 3.0%. |
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Source: "Personnel rewards, 2004/2005", Croner Reward with CIPD, October 2004, tel: 01785 813566, price £395 (£310 CIPD members), www.croner.co.uk. Scope: Personnel/HR specialists Technical details: Rates of those who "changed job in last year" analysed by responsibility level, and as a matrix of level and three broad industrial sectors. Latest info: Not stated. Main findings: 5.3% changed their job in the past year. |
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Source: Prison Service Pay Review Body, Stationery Office, www.tsc.co.uk or free from www.ome.uk.com. Scope: Prison officers Technical details: Annual report; includes crude-wastage rates for operational managers, prison officers and operational support grade staff (OSGs). Latest info: Feb-04 Main findings: Crude-wastage rates of 6% for prison officers and 16%
for OSGs. |
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Source: "People data benchmarking", Skillsmart Retail, tel: 020 7399 3450, www.skillsmart.com. Scope: Retail staff Technical details: Benchmarking service hosted by the Sector Skills Council for retailing. Metrics include staff turnover and retention rates. Latest info: - Main findings: - |
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Source: "Salary survey of sales and marketing staff", REL 3 , price £445 (non-participants), £295 (participants). Scope: Sales and marketing Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by reason for leaving, responsibility level and function, region and sector, plus trends over time. Latest info: September 2004, relating to year to 1.7.04 (114 employers). Main findings: Resignation rates have fallen from 9.6% to 5.3%
(sales) and 7.1% to 5.4% (marketing). |
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Source: "Survey of teacher resignations and recruitment", Employers' Organisation for local government, 2004, tel: 020 7296 6781, www.lg-employers.gov.uk. Scope: Schoolteachers Technical details: Annual survey. Covers turnover of full-time permanent teachers in LEA schools. Analyses turnover excluding moves between LEA schools by: reasons for leaving, type of school, gender, age, region, grade and main teaching subject. Latest info: July 2004, relating to 2003 calendar year. Main findings: Overall resignation rate has fallen from 12.1% to
11.8% (provisional data). |
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Source: Review Body for School Teachers, Stationery Office, www.tsc.co.uk or free from www.ome.uk.com. Scope: Schoolteachers Technical details: Each annual report reproduces data from DfES and Employers' Organisation on teachers leaving state schools by type of school, age, FT/PT, and reasons for leaving, plus trends over time. Latest info: March 2004, relating to 2002 calendar year and to 2001/02 fiscal year. Main findings: Full-time secondary teachers' resignations fell from
11.5% to 10.1% approx. |
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Source: "Teacher turnover, wastage and destinations", Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson, Department for Education and Skills, 2004, RR553, free from www.dfes.gov.uk. Scope: Schoolteachers Technical details: Latest in a series of irregular research studies commissioned by DfES into schoolteachers' turnover. In-depth 70-page analysis based on surveys of schools and leavers. Covers both crude wastage and wastage excluding moves between state schools. Latest info: June 2004, relating to 2003 calendar year (1,244 schools). Main findings: Turnover, excluding moves to other state schools,
unchanged at 9.2% (primary) and 7.2% (secondary) full-time teachers. |
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Source: "London secretarial and clerical rewards", Croner Reward, tel: 01785 813566, www.croner.co.uk. Scope: Secretarial and clerical staff in London Technical details: Crude-wastage turnover analysed by grade. Latest info: August 2004. Main findings: - |
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Source: "Social services workforce survey", Employers' Organisation for local government, 2003, tel: 020 7296 6781, www.lg-employers.gov.uk. Scope: Social services and care homes Technical details: Crude-wastage rates analysed by type of job and region, plus trends over time. Latest info: July 2004, covering year to 30.9.03 (100 authorities). Main findings: Overall rate has fallen from 14.1% to 13.2%. |
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Source: "Charity rewards, 2004/2005", Croner Reward with Charity and Fundraising Appointments, September 2004, tel: 01785 813566, prices £275 to £320, www.croner.co.uk. Scope: Voluntary organisations Technical details: Annual survey. Gives minimum, average and maximum crude-wastage rates for Greater London, elsewhere and overall. Latest info: Not stated. Main findings: Average crude wastage rate in UK is 15.5%. |
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Source: "16th annual voluntary sector salary survey", REL 3 with NCVO, price £315 (non-participants), £40-£210 (participants). Scope: Voluntary organisations Technical details: Annual survey. Results analysed by reason for leaving, responsibility level, region, and charity's income, plus trends over time. Latest info: October 2004, relating to year to 1.7.04 (186 organisations). Main findings: Overall resignation rate down from 9.9% to 7.3%. |
1 "Focusing on training", Birmingham
Evening Mail, 4 November 2004, p.34.
2 "VOSA takes softly softly approach", Motor Transport, 21 October 2004.
3 Centres of attention.
4 Home is where the work is.
5 Retaining and growing talent at London
and Quadrant Housing Trust.
6 Great Ormond
Street Hospital rises to the challenge.
7 Employee well-being and
the psychological contract, David Guest and Neil Conway, Chartered Institute
of Personnel and Development, 2004.
8 Total reward survey
2004: report, Watson Wyatt, 2004, www.watsonwyatt.com.
9 National management salary survey, Remuneration Economics with the Chartered Management
Institute, Remuneration Economics, 2004, tel: 020 8549 8726, www.celre.co.uk, price
£630 (non-participants), £335 (participants).
10 Room for improvement: absence and labour turnover, 2004,
Confederation of British Industry with AXA, 2004, from CBI Publications,
tel: 020 7395 8071, www.cbi.org.uk, price £70 (£25 CBI members).
Note: The mention or omission of a particular product or service does not imply an endorsement or criticism. Other products and services are available.
