Employee retention is becoming increasingly important strategically, especially in times of skills shortages and changing working environments. In order to make informed decisions in retention management, SRG SSR has implemented a offboarding monitoring system in collaboration with Empiricon. The aim was to gain data-based insights into the reasons for employees leaving.
We spoke with Andreas Graf, Head of Compensation Management at SRG SSR. His department deals with data-based analyses to make HR processes more effective. In the interview, he provides insights into the motivations behind the project, initial findings, and the importance of data in modern human resources management.
We want to attract good people and, of course, we want to retain them. Retention management is an important keyword here. To get a feel for the most important factors in retaining people or why people leave, we want and need to systematically collect data.
Yes, it went very well. Technically, it is not complicated because Empiricon offers its own solution on its own server with a user interface for HR.
We didn't have to integrate any components of our HR system. I also find the process description very helpful. Empiricon provided us with a pre-designed process explaining how to proceed, what the steps are, and which HR roles intervene in the process and when. This allowed us to explain the process clearly to everyone involved, and it has become firmly established.
We consistently receive positive feedback from HR consulting: offboarding interviews are much more focused and efficient, and the automatically generated PDF documents (evaluation documents from individual interviews) are extremely helpful in preparing for the interviews.
For me, one of the best indicators is the very good rate we have for the release function. At the end of the questionnaire, employees can decide whether their answers are accessible to HR. This rate varies between 70 and 100 percent, with the long-term average being between 80 and 85 percent. This shows that people trust this tool and that there is no mistrust.
Another indicator for me is that the free text fields are used extensively. There are three questions at the end of the questionnaire, e.g., what did I like about my employment at SRG SSR? Or what could SRG SSR have done to keep me longer? We receive very detailed feedback and a lot of input from departing employees. We naturally work with this input and reflect on it with HR.
It also allows us to show our appreciation to those who are leaving.
Yes, one of them is the aggregated reports. We are currently using these for national HR reporting, which is very helpful. There are quarterly, semi-annual, or annual reports, depending on the amount of data available.
We like to distinguish between two categories of reasons for leaving. There are reasons that we as employers can directly influence. These include leadership, overload or underload, the team, etc. And then there are reasons that we cannot directly influence, e.g., when someone leaves for family reasons, when someone retires, when someone changes careers, etc.
We take an in-depth look at the reasons we can influence. We have identified two starting points here. These are "lack of career development prospects" and "leadership." These are two of the issues that are mentioned most frequently, but which we can influence and are actively trying to address.
One example that surprised us positively: we are expecting a decline in revenue due to the fee reduction that has already been announced. In concrete terms, this means that we will have to cut jobs and, as an employer, can no longer guarantee a high level of job security.
We were convinced that this would be reflected in the reasons for leaving. Surprisingly, we have not seen anything like this so far. There is an indicator for "job insecurity" as a reason for leaving. This remains constant at 3% to 4%. Because we now tend to have fewer resources and are performing the same tasks with fewer resources, it would also have been expected that the issue of "overwork" would increase as a reason for leaving. However, the opposite has been the case in recent years.
We had certain expectations that (fortunately!) have not yet been confirmed. However, with the planned decline in revenue due to the fee reduction decided by the Federal Council and the associated staff cuts until 2029, this will unfortunately change.
From a data perspective, it is certainly important to achieve the highest possible response rate. In order to obtain a good database with reliable data and to achieve this high response rate, certain marketing and communication measures are required among employees.
The barrier to entry for the tool must also be low; it must be designed to be user-friendly. Those who leave should feel that they are being taken seriously. We want to convey to them, "Hey, we care about what you think and we want to learn from it. We want to try not to lose good employees in similar cases." It is very important to convey this idea to people and show appreciation in the sense of "you are helping us by filling this out and we value your opinion."
I think that's the key to high participation.
I think it's a very important tool that provides us with a lot of data for management. We are currently busy combining qualitative and quantitative data. Combining all data, including from employee surveys or on turnover, should generate added value. The data from offboarding monitoring provides exciting input that we wouldn't want to miss.