Is Retention Strategy Really Just a Game of Chicken?
Today’s HR landscape is connected now more than ever and companies harnessing their data are able to increase potential and productivity. Pinnacle Entertainment is one such company and it is in a time of transition. In this talk, Alex will show how the company is exploring what data can offer to better inform their retention strategy. Pinnacle is using their turn over report, annual engagement survey, and annual performance scores to find and address attrition hot spots.
Keeping employees is like a really big game of chicken. HR professionals are waiting to see who will leave first and how to keep that from happening. Alex Farley Messer is a HR Business Partner with Pinnacle Entertainment. She says it is, but there is a way to make it a smarter game.
It’s all in the data.
The company specifically looked at hot spots within their company; 6 departments that show a high probability of a high turnover rate. They did this by reviewing engagement polling data. To get a deeper understanding of why people were leaving these particular departments, Farley Messer looked at differentiators between those that left the company and those that stayed. Based on the engagement index from the two groups, those who exited and those who were retained, exited respondents were less engaged. Other differentiators included compensation, professional development, respect, recognition, leadership, and availability of resources.
By focusing on those demographics, the company was able to verify those six departments were seeing turnover, but also identified three more that were at risk.
The company then looked at the number of employees who left the company last year and what departments they were in. Pinnacle lost 25 people from 14 departs. Based on the data, 7 of the 14 departments who lost employees were previously identified as hot spots meaning the company is able to reasonably predict what departments and what employees are going to leave the company based on the data analyzed.
“For the most part, it is telling us these predictions are things we need to take into account,” Farley Messer said. “That’s really good news because it’s saying to us this is an actual, solid, informed strategy we want to use moving forward.”
Key Takeaways:
- Identify wants versus needs during M&A | What roles and people are critical during M&A
- See the Big Picture: What does the story tell by looking at all three data sets
- Predictive Analytics: How to be proactive and retain top integral
