Every business I’ve worked with has a problem. It’s not unique to them; it’s just a fact of the modern workplace. That problem is the attrition risks they face. Losing valuable employees can be a huge cost to your business, and those costs may not be immediately apparent, but they can seriously hinder your organization’s long-term goals.
Finding and recruiting new employees, a “brain drain” among team members who had developed efficient working habits, and even a loss of workplace morale can all compound and reduce your productivity.
If you’re trying to implement strategies to mitigate attrition, but you’re not seeing the results you want, you might need to pay closer attention to the data. Predictive analytics for employee attrition has come a long way in the age of AI, and the way HR departments manage the issue is shaking up.
What Are Attrition Risks and Why Do They Matter?
Staying in business, indeed thriving in business, means building on a solid foundation, and that foundation always starts with people. People sell products to other people, provide services for different people, and, most importantly, keep your business alive.
So, when you lose key talent, it affects your organization’s performance, culture, and bottom line. The attrition risks your company faces will be somewhat unique, but all companies have to confront similar issues. Employees can become complacent, feel as if policies and procedures aren’t working, feel as if management doesn’t listen to their concerns, and feel as if they’re just “getting through” the workday. The lack of a challenge or the lack of a perception of upward mobility in their roles often leads them to look elsewhere.
High turnover rates can cost your organization a fortune in sourcing and retraining new talent. In fact, the average turnover cost for companies in America stands at around 6 to 9 months of the lost employee’s salary. Just think about what you could do if you retained that productivity and were able to use it to expand your operations rather than maintain them.
How AI Helps Predict Employee Attrition Risks
Given the huge cost of losing employees to your bottom line, keeping them on staff should be a primary concern. Doing that means identifying which employees may be at risk of leaving before they actually do so. This way, your organization isn’t blindsided by a critical team member’s loss.
But how can you discover who may be looking for the exit, and what can you do about it? One way is to get on board the AI train. Its ability to analyze large data sets like employee performance metrics, engagement, and satisfaction can help you anticipate who may be at risk of leaving.
For instance, let’s say you employ traditional methods of survey questions for your employees, asking them about their job satisfaction and opinions on how the organization can improve. This is a great way to solicit feedback, but let’s be honest; feedback from your employees is not always entirely truthful.
Leveraging AI can pinpoint areas a human HR analyst might miss. Let’s say an employee responds to a question about how much they like their job by merely saying, “It’s great!” This could be a reflection of how they were feeling at that moment, but it doesn’t give any specifics about how they really feel on a day-to-day basis.
A human not supplemented by AI may take this to mean they are satisfied with their work, but other factors that can measure their performance or their engagement, such as how likely they are to provide input about company policies or respond to requests from other team members is a more reliable indicator of their job satisfaction.
Key AI Tools for Predicting Employee Attrition
Predicting employee attrition is an area where AI has shown enormous promise. Some common tools in use currently are machine learning and natural language processing models. For example, tools like MonkeyLearn or Lexalytics are capable of analyzing text responses for sentiment, and full-suite tools like Workday or SAP SuccessFactors can pull multiple data points together to stave off attrition risk.
One of the most popular HR predictive analytics tools currently in use is Visier, which comes with 2,000 HR questions out of the box, allowing you to gain actionable insights quickly. One of my personal favorites is Lattice, which handles a lot of employee engagement tasks, from performance reviews to analyzing real-time feedback.
Benefits of Using AI to Predict and Prevent Employee Attrition
For the long-term health of your organization, and especially the productivity of your team, utilizing AI to catch potential attrition risks can have enormous benefits.
Your HR team will have a chance to discuss any potential issues with a team member before they get to the point where leaving is inevitable. Knowledge like this will reduce overall turnover rates, which saves the company money in recruitment and training and is likely to create a more connected team. If team members feel like they’re all in it for the long haul, they’ll act like it. But if they feel like that new hire will only be around for a few months, why bother putting forth the effort to get them up to speed? Essentially, your team needs stability to function effectively, and AI can help you achieve that.
How HR Predictive Analytics Supports Employee Retention Strategies
If you’re running a positive organization with a view to retaining top talent, you’ve likely got retention strategies that could be working well. For instance, you may regularly solicit feedback from employees via surveys, or you may offer particular rewards for hard work.
However, you could still be unnecessarily losing talent, and that’s where using HR predictive analytics with AI can help.
Employee retention is a long game, and it’s important to remember that each employee is an individual with unique perceptions and motivations. As HR managers, we can sometimes get lost in the weeds of unimportant data points that aren’t relevant to a particular candidate, but AI insights can recommend targeted training programs and mentorship opportunities or discover if an employee highly values flexible work options.
Getting Started with AI for Attrition Prediction
AI-driven predictive analytics can help you tame employee attrition and integrate it into your HR processes seamlessly. Having lots of data is great, but being able to sift through it and find the data that’s relevant to your organization is what AI is great at.
First, any insights you gain need to be implemented. I’ve seen companies sit on the data they’ve collected that points to needed improvements, only for their departments to be resistant to change.
That said, make sure you’re also using the right AI tools and collecting the right data. Your HR department likely has loads of data on employee sentiment and retention already. The trick is sifting through it to be of maximum benefit to your organization.
Look at performance reviews, any exit interviews you may have, attendance records, or feedback from surveys to get an idea of what strategies you should implement. Then, if you’ve found some team members could be “slipping,” try allowing managers to have one-on-one discussions with them proactively.
You may also share your insights with employees to get their take on the situation or use what you’ve learned to enhance policies around work-life balance or career advancement.
Overcoming Challenges in Implementing AI for HR
Implementing AI for HR predictive analytics can be more complex. Employees may have concerns about privacy with all of this data collection. What’s more, integrating AI with older systems can be a challenge, and some employees may not “trust” the AI’s assessment of the data.
To overcome these issues, your organization should implement data protection policies that are clear and straightforward to team members. Ensure that any data collected will only be used to improve the workplace environment rather than be used against them somehow in a performance review.
Once your policies are aligned, connecting your new AI platform to your existing system can be made easier by using the right tools. Visier, for example, is an all-in-one solution for employee engagement and management where you can input the data you already have and get up and running in no time.
The Future of AI in Employee Retention
In this new era of the AI-assisted workplace, it’s crucial to learn how to use these tools for your organization to remain productive effectively, and this is no different when it comes to employee retention.
Every company faces attrition risks, but in the past, it was much more difficult for HR professionals to identify who might be thinking of leaving and come up with a strategy for making changes to keep them. However, if you can identify issues earlier, you have that much more time to devise a solution and prevent attrition risks.
AI will only continue to impact the retention-productivity link in the 21st century. Its influence on HR practices is set to grow, and departments need to learn how to utilize its capabilities to mitigate attrition risks and maintain the high-performing teams they need to stay competitive.
If you’re looking for other insights on how your organization can remain competitive well into the next decade, sign up for our monthly newsletter. Signing up will also get you on the waiting list for my new book, “The Retention-Productivity Link”, which details core strategies you need to keep top talent on your team and ensure they’re contented and fully engaged.
