[IPAC-List] calculating turnover

[mhammer at 295.ca]

What is the particular measurement objective here?  Is the desired index
for the purposes of simply calculating annual organizational staffing
needs?  Is it to determine where there are retention issues?

I would think that the manner of calculating both denominator AND
numerator would depend somewhat on the purpose of the analysis.  For
instance,one may wish to consider something a departure ONLY if the
incumbent leaves the organization entirely, but not if they simply move
from one unit to another.

Mark Hammer
Ottawa

> I'm exploring different ways of calculating turnover and I'm puzzled by
the typical approaches to defining the denominator. I'm starting with
the
> assumption that turnover is about what proportion of employees have left
the organization (or job, region, etc.). To arrive at that, it seems to
me
> that you need to know the number of employees that left the organization
in a given period of time, which should then be compared to the number
of
> employees who could have left the organization in that same time period.
Almost every recommendation or practice out there, however, includes a
denominator that is a) some form of headcounts and b) for a point in
time
> or multiple points in time. The most common is to create an average of
the
> number of employees at the beginning of the period and the number of
employees at the end of the period. I see two limitations to this
typical
> approach: 1) counting the number of employees only gets at the number of
filled positions, regardless of who occupies them and b) data for a
point
> in time shouldn't substitute for data for a time period. Static
headcounts
> don't represent the total number of people that could have left in a
time
> period. If you have 100 employees at the beginning of the year and 100
at
> the end of the year, the typical formula says the denominator is 100. If
50 left, the turnover rate is 50%. But if 50 left and have been
replaced,
> then the total number that could have left is actually 150 (the 100 that
started and the 50 more that were hired and are still there), which is
really just a turnover rate of 30%. The only number that seems like a
truly accurate denominator would be the number of employees at the
beginning of the time period plus any new hires in the time period. The
only challenge I see with this approach is that there is a ceiling of
100%, which makes sense on the one hand (you shouldn't have more people
leaving than there are people) but can be misleading on the other, since
an annual rate of 100% turnover could have been reached in the first
quarter. To me, the solution is to qualify the number just like
that--say
> the time period within which 100% is reached.
>
> So, given the divide between the common practice and my logic, can folks
help me bridge the gap? What am I missing?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Megan Paul
>
>
>
> Megan E. Paul, Ph.D.
> Research Assistant Professor
> University of Nebraska–Lincoln
> Center on Children, Families, and the Law
> 206 S. 13th Street, Suite 1000
> Lincoln, NE 68588-0227
>
> (402) 472-9812 Office
> (402) 472-8412 Fax
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