Sobering Polling Data That Warns Employer’s to Take Worker Development Seriously

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

FinanceOnline published a great compilation of polling results and statistics, along with their source, in “112 Employee Turnover Statistics: 2024 Causes, Cost and Prevention Data” that lists the results of a large number of worker turnover, development and retention polling outcomes – 112 to be exact – to allow the reader to form their own opinion. I highlight a few of the points verbatim in this article, but I encourage you to review the complete list.  The one common factor is that the employer has not done a good job developing and managing their workers for the outcomes they say they expect and are losing massive amounts of money and opportunity as a result. For die-hard short-term planners, these are short-term challenges with real, significant short-term consequences that compound year after year to become the long-term collective challenges that may become insurmountable.

While we are bombarded by polling statistics today, here is some information to help you decide the relevancy and accuracy of the explanations resultant from polling. What used to be useful guidance explaining current trends or predicting future movements in the economy or society, polls seem to have devolved into a hyper-version of marketing often confusing us with data that conflicts with the reality we experience – leading us to reject data that is relevant and to unwittingly accept data that is engineered.

There are many types of polling. The accuracy is usually determined by the poll size (number of respondents), poll stratification (are all variants of polling targets considered. Example: “Are you better off today than 4 years ago” – answer depends on which end of the economic spectrum the respondent lives, what exactly the question refers to and if seems relevant), the question validity (how well the question was designed. Example: the previous question contains a lot of ambiguity and opens the door for the respondent’s interpretation) and pollster’s bias (is the pollster unbiased in their expectations of the results or looking for results that support a previous held opinion).

“Each resignation can cost a company up to a third of the worker’s annual salary. 67% of which often come from soft costs like reduced productivity but 33% come from hard costs like recruiting, hiring temp workers, and the like.(SHRM)”

One of the more nefarious methods is “push-polling,” which is used to steer a respondent toward a particular opinion, not solicit it. The questions are structured as such to subliminally convert the respondent to a certain side or view. Push polls have been used for political campaigns for some time, but are ubiquitous today in world of influencers  with hidden agendas. They can help to engineer “trends” that shape well-funded investment market positions or bring dictators to power by congealing disgruntled groups into an influential voting block.

“A trillion dollars. That’s what U.S. businesses are losing every year due to voluntary turnover. And the most astounding part is that most of this damage is self-inflicted. (American Machinist)”

The key to extracting relevancy from polling results is to be open minded. Interpret them for believability by looking at the source; do they have a credible track record. If you can, determine the question format, polling sample size and margin of error in the results. When possible, compare polling results from several sources in search of a common thread. This can help you determine the veracity of polling results.

Here’s a few of the key points relevant to any organization, amplified in other magazines and blogs:

• Three out of four employees say they resigned voluntarily. (Work Institute, 2020)
• Among employees that voluntarily quit, 38% resign in order to retire. (The QTI Group, 2020)
• More than half (63%) of employees who have worked for their current employer for a decade say they are open to a new opportunity. (Emplify, 2020)
• 42% of employees who are looking to find a new job say they feel their company is not maximizing their skills and abilities. (Deloitte, 2020) 
• Employee turnover has cost US industries more than $630 billion. (Work Institute, 2020)
• Each resignation can cost a company up to a third of the worker’s annual salary. 67% of which often come from soft costs like reduced productivity but 33% come from hard costs like recruiting, hiring temp workers, and the like. (SHRM, 2019)
• This is echoed by a more recent study that revealed the cost of replacing an employee is equivalent to 33% of an employee’s annual salary. (Emplify, 2020)
• “For companies who experienced extended job vacancies, 81% reported it had a negative impact on their company. Among these are not getting work done (28%), disengaged or unmotivated workers (27%), low employee morale (25%), revenue loss (25%), and delivery time delays (22%).”  (Express Employment Professionals, 2020)

Although these statistics might also include the Post Covid-19 transition, new and developing disruptions to industries continue. Gallup reported in “This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion,” which was echoed in a recent American Machinist magazine – focusing the analysis on manufacturing in a more relevant way – in an article entitled, “Continuous Learning in the Shop:”

• “A trillion dollars. That’s what U.S. businesses are losing every year due to voluntary turnover. And the most astounding part is that most of this damage is self-inflicted.
• The cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary — and that’s a conservative estimate.
• So, a 100-person organization that provides an average salary of $50,000 could have turnover and replacement costs of approximately $660,000 to $2.6 million per year.”

These numbers only apply to the cost of turnover, and do not reflect the unaccounted-for opportunity costs of undeveloped or underdeveloped worker capacity, malperformance and noncompliance pertaining to lack of adequate training.

So many sources alluding to the nature of this significant challenge and “self-inflicted” problem for employers needs to be considered for its merit. Afterall, these polling results really reflect what we all intuitively know. No amount of push polling and influencing that AI has the all the answers that we have been waiting decades for or that education, alone, should be expected to solve the problem will alter this self-destructive path. These excuses that tried to explain and redirect blame for the worker investment, development and management neglect that might have appeased investors in the past will force change as these facts illustrate the results of inaction. Employer’s have to rebuild their worker development strategy that has been whittled down through “cost-cutting,” or create one that is focused and deliberate if time has weathered away through neglect the remnants of their strategy put in place 30-40 years ago. Chickens have, indeed, come home to roost.

Each worker is an investment and should be developed, managed, measured for return and improved like any other capital investment in the organization. If your accounting department needs a reminder, add some of these national statistics to your firm’s strategy justification  to back your firm’s unique case.

If you recognize these challenges and have shed your fear of even looking for other solutions, check out Proactive Technologies’ structured on-the-job training system approach to see how it might work at your firm, your family of facilities or your region. Contact a Proactive Technologies representative today to schedule a GoToMeeting videoconference briefing to your computer. This can be followed up with an onsite presentation for you and your colleagues. A 13-minute promo briefing is available at the Proactive Technologies website and provides an overview to get you started and to help you explain it to your staff. As always, onsite presentations are available as well.