Dive Brief:
- Employees who are more likely to quit their jobs tend to work fewer hours "week-over-week for up to two months prior to leaving an organization," April 20 survey results from Prodoscore revealed. Workers on the brink of leaving also demonstrated higher volatility in their workday and hours. The research evaluated 2 million datapoints from 3,000 to 5,000 employees over twelve weeks.
- For those likely to leave, the workday started later and ended earlier compared to those who remained. The pattern is noticeable five to seven weeks before departure, Prodoscore said, and the pattern ramps up as departure approaches.
- Employees who are likely to leave also interact far less with co-workers, email and calendar events a few weeks prior to departure.
Dive Insight:
2020 may have been a tough year for employers regarding turnover, various reports have shown — and it can be an expensive problem to have.
Of employers who said they lost employees in 2020 in a U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey, half said child care concerns were to blame due to restrictions put into place by the coronavirus pandemic. Many employees also reported in a separate survey working longer hours and spending more time in meetings, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic.
Employers' responses to the pandemic may drive some employees to leave their jobs entirely, a January report from SilkRoad Technology and OnePoll revealed; 2 in 5 workers surveyed said they planned to resign over how their employer handled the situation. But toxic cultures have been driving expensive turnover since before the pandemic hit, too. Toxic workplaces, according to a 2019 report from the Society for Human Resource Management, drove 1 in 5 workers from their workplaces in the five years prior, adding up to costs totaling more than $223 billion.
To keep workers on board — and mentally healthy — one small business turned to mindfulness training, for example, to encourage employee resilience and a more compassionate culture.
