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Final 9 376933228-Draft-1-Using-A-Performance-Analysis-To-Influence-Employee-Turnover-1
Final 9 376933228-Draft-1-Using-A-Performance-Analysis-To-Influence-Employee-Turnover-1
Jeans, Inc., was a textile manufacturer that had been established in their Midwestern
metropolitan area for 35 years. The plant employed approximately six hundred staff.
annual employee turnover rate of nearly 90 percent. Employee turnover was becoming endemic
to the organization. Externally, regional unemployment was low and compounding the issue.
This situation was a costly performance problem for Jeans, Inc., and threatened the plant’s ability
Problem Statement
Jeans, Inc. management surveyed the environment and recognized that the employee
turnover problem would not abate. Moreover, staff replace was an issue. Jeans, Inc. did not have
a remediation plan to address these threats. This created a tenuous and uncertain future for the
company. A project was organized to analyze and identify the cause(s) of the high turnover.
To address the growing turnover Jeans, Inc consulted with a local university. This team
was tasked with conducting a performance analysis and making recommendations. The team
elected for a performance improvement model that followed a modified version of the standard
Human Performance Improvement (HPI) lifecycle. This modified model deviated from the HPI
The team broke the performance analysis into the following phases: pre-analysis, analysis
phase and post-analysis phase. The team elected to use quantitative approaches for the
performance analyses. The primary data collection approaches, the execution and usage goals are
noted below:
Tool Execution Goal
One-on-one formal Approximately 45 employees This data “provides rich
interviews, observations and were interviewed or information on firsthand
informal (spontaneous and observed, including the plant exposure to the day-to-day
unplanned) conversational manager, plant supervisors, experiences and behaviors of
interviews operator trainees, “leavers” employees and helped
(former employees), consultants recognize the
incumbent operators, activities and physical aspects
maintenance employees, of the situation”. (p. 114)
trainers, bargaining unit
representatives, and the plant
personnel manager and staff.
Extant data reviews Data review consisted of The extant data was
plant extant data such as documented to “help the
personnel records and research team better
regional employment understand employee
statistics flyers, operations turnover within the textile
specifications, production industry in general and its
records, safety reports, immediate impact on regional
memos from plant employment. It also helped
management, various bulletin team members to analyze
board documents, and memos possible causes of turnover.”
and news from corporate (p. 117)
headquarters were reviewed
The team generated a large volumes of data. The entire process extended over two years.
During the pre-analysis phase the literature review and regional employment data
uncovered that:
● turnover was a common issue within the textile industry
● low regional unemployment exacerbated the company’s turnover issues
The analysis phase results pointed to several key factors that impacted turnover:
was created under the belief that a single approach would not be enough. To address the
management and supervisory issues, the recommended interventions included the identification
and review of specific job responsibilities with each supervisor and the reallocation of
changes to how the plant electronic public address system was used, and increase use of
supervisors and trainers as “communication conduits” between management and other plant staff
members. For operator and trainer training, trainer job descriptions are developed and “train-the-
trainer” and skills training are implemented. To address orientation training, the development
Evaluation
Once the interventions were implemented the overall company turnover rate fell to 60%.
However, there were no opportunities to evaluate the interventions. Not enough observation and
interview data was generated to show their effect on turnover. After six weeks of RJP process
use, turnover related interventions were suspended by the plant manager due to many internal
● Escalation of an ongoing, large-scale redesign process within the plant that was initiated
by corporate leadership.
quitting.
Critique
This case highlights the problems associated with high turnover rate. It also shows,
however, the problems associated with attempting to solve a critical problem without proper
analysis. The organization used a modified model that showed a clear departure from tested best
practice HPI methodology. As a result, the company spent more time trying to solve the problem
and not actually solving it. This is evident in the company’s pre-analysis phase. During this phase,
the team employed a “research-based” approach, which included reviewing literature of turnover
(112). Even though the review indicated that high turnover rate was usually solved via the
implementation of one strategy, the team chose to do the opposite, knowing full well that data
counterproductive because
1. By spending time focusing on general research on turnover (rather than their situational
problem), the team fails to recognize turnover as a presenting problem, rather than the
2. The team does not perform a root-cause analysis to find the real cause of the problem.
3. The team makes a decision that goes against the evidence they find.
The first two are mistakes that analysts often make, and while it is not ideal to misdirect
resources, the analysts who make those mistakes are following HPI principles. The third is not a
mistake, but a purposeful decision to ignore the best empirical data available to them and
systematic approach.
The problem that the organization faced arose from human performance problems, but it
also arose from environmental factors. The company was working against its environment
(extremely low unemployment rates exacerbat by an influx of workers) but pursued an intervention
strategy aimed exclusively at “fixing” the performer problem. Elementary macroeconomics and
microeconomics dictate that the labor market adheres to the law of supply and demand.
Paradoxically, however, low unemployment rates suggest that the supply of workers is low, thus
causing the demand for job in the region to increase. When the demand for workers increases, so
too do the wages offered to those seeking jobs. In order to hire workers, organizations must then
offer higher wages to job-seekers in order to remain competitive. That applies to retaining workers
as well. This is relevant to HPI because the time- and therefore, money- used to try and solve an
environmental problem could have been used to increase employee satisfaction. When the
individual is pitted against the environment, the environment will eventually win.
The organization’s turnover rate may have decreased, but 60% is still inefficient. The
organization’s intervention selection did not address employee satisfaction and did not focus on
Turnover - Jeans, Inc. In Phillips, J. J. (Ed.) Performance Analysis and Consulting (pp.
109 0 134). Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training and Development