How do I reduce voluntary churn?
Article Type: Q&A From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 11, Issue 2
Leading industry experts answer your strategic questions
Chris PhillipsBased at Taleo.
Despite the recent uncertainty in the job market, many organizations’best employees are still being poached and the issue of voluntary churn is an area of concern for many of today’s HR managers. While the latest jobs figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that unemployment figures in the UK are once again on the increase, the reality is that while vacancies in the job market may be limited, there are still opportunities out there for those top performers within organizations – the very people you want to keep hold of.
Taleo’s recent research, “Talent Mobility in 2011,” which surveyed 500 HR decision makers in large UK companies, found that the concerns around voluntary churn remained high among HR managers, with only 21 percent of respondents expecting to see this decrease in 2011 (Taleo, 2011). However, while it was widely recognized as a shared concern, the majority of those surveyed appeared to attribute retention problems to external pull factors, such as better salaries or opportunities elsewhere, rather than internal push factors. What became apparent from the research was that HR managers could in fact be missing a trick by failing to look inside their organization and exploring what proactive steps they could take to increase retention and ensure that good employees stay.
Timely and accurate employee data is key
To successfully increase retention and to ensure existing employees are offered opportunities to make both upwards and, where relevant, sideways moves within their organization, businesses need reliable and up-to-date information on their existing employee base and their individual skills sets, career plans and aspirations. By gathering this talent intelligence, and matching employee skills and aspirations to available roles and opportunities within the business,HR managers can match the needs of the business with those of its employees,through a talent mobility strategy.
By introducing an effective talent mobility strategy, which allows organizations to mobilize people internally in response to business needs,employers can not only improve business performance, but increase staff retention by offering existing employees an opportunity to develop their career within the organization.
However, while talent mobility appears to be widely recognized by HR managers as a key element of their HR strategy for the year ahead, the extent to which this is currently happening successfully within organizations is limited, with many lacking the necessary talent intelligence to match new opportunities within their business with relevant, existing employees that have demonstrated not only the necessary skills and expertise to fulfill a different role, but also the desire.
The barriers to talent mobility
In our research, HR managers identified a number of barriers that they believed were preventing them from achieving a truly mobile workforce –namely a lack of visibility into talent gaps and opportunities; a lack of quality and reliable data on employee talent; and a lack of systems/technology to support talent mobility initiatives.
However, these shortfalls can be rectified through the introduction of talent mobility technology. Without the necessary technology and systems in place, the ability for HR professionals and senior management to align the best people to the highest impact roles within their organization is severely reduced. The findings from our research suggested that only one in ten companies surveyed were using a dedicated talent management system. The majority are still “making do” with company intranets to facilitate a passive approach to internal mobility by advertising available roles internally and simply hoping that the right employees apply. In nearly a third of cases, organizations relied solely on email to facilitate internal mobility.
If companies truly value their workforce and want to ensure they are getting the most from their existing talent pools, while at the same time offering their staff a reason to stay – namely, the opportunity to grow and develop their careers with their existing employer – then they need to invest in their people. Gathering talent intelligence on your workforce is something that should be integral to the entire HR process, from initial recruitment and on boarding through to ongoing staff development and appraisals. People are the greatest asset in any business so by retaining top performers and those with skills critical to future growth, companies can ensure that they have the right talent in place for the future.
About the author
Chris Phillips is vice president of EMEA marketing at talent management solutions company, Taleo. He is responsible for product marketing, product management and marketing communications throughout Europe. Over the last six years he has led the formulation of Taleo’s product strategy for international markets. A graduate of the University of Cambridge, Phillips has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the software industry. Chris Phillips can be contacted at: cphillips@taleo.com
