Ultimate Performance: Measuring Human Resources at Work

Proposed Retention Metrics

At the heart of our approach to retention metrics is the core premise that effective retention metrics require an organization to more carefully examine each incident of turnover. Gross measures of turnover and retention really say little about the quality of employees lost and retained. The following metrics address these concerns.

Metric One: Turnover Index. Each organization will need to maintain a database of persons leaving the organization and make several key ratings about each person who leaves. These ratings will comprise the turnover index and be used in other metrics as well. Table 9.1 shows the elements of the turnover index.

Table 9.1.

Element		Score (1 to 5)
Reason for Departure: To what extent was the departure potentially avoidable?		5 being potentially avoidable
Replaceability: How difficult will it be to replace the leaver with someone at the same level of competence?		5 being very hard to replace
Performance: How well was this person performing at his or her job?		5 being high performer
Potential: How much potential did the person have to move to a position with greater responsibility?		5 being high potential
Index Score		Sum the four ratings

High scores on this index (which ranges from 4 to 20) indicate a person that the organization would not want to lose. A low score indicates a person whose loss was unavoidable, that is easily replaced, was performing badly, and had little potential—in other words, a desirable departure.

The Index score, ...