Turnover is the wrong metric. Leaders need to establish a passion index instead

My husband sent me a funny Tweet thread the other day, which featured clippings of news and headlines dating back to the early 1900s. A new one every 10 years or so, expressed the common refrain that “no one wants to work anymore.” The most recent inclusion was from this year. 

The rhetoric around a perceived lack of work ethic has another facet that we’re seeing play out in the media now: high turnover. A recent study from Gartner is forecasting that employee turnover will be 50% to 75% higher than what companies have experienced previously, and more reports from McKinsey and others are talking about the great resignation. For the year 2021, 47.4 million American workers voluntarily quit, a record for the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Anyone paying close attention to employee experience will tell you it’s not as cut and dry as “no one wants to work” or “no one is loyal to a company.” Rather, we’re using outdated metrics to measure engagement, productivity, and happiness, and those metrics mean that employers are using outdated methods to course-correct when they see an issue.

Taking into account table stakes factors

Earlier this month, Spotify claimed that since it implemented a work-from-anywhere and flexible work policy, it’s experienced lower turnover compared to pre-pandemic levels. People want to work, but they are increasingly seeking out companies that give them flexibility inside their work. 

Flexibility can feel like a buzzword, especially as companies navigate return-to-office policies and hybrid work, and many companies are still resisting. They think that too much flexibility will erode their culture, perhaps even increase turnover as employees pursue a sense of community. I’m not suggesting the office is obsolete; physical space still serves a purpose, but culture and community don’t only happen there. So how, in this new dynamic in which flexibility is paramount and engagement looks different than it did pre-pandemic, can we adopt new, more meaningful ways to measure employee sentiment, in other words, metrics that go way beyond turnover? 

Finding the right metrics

Turnover is an important metric to track, but in a recession (and as we continue to see layoffs and a cool down of the war for talent) employees might stay put because they’re concerned there aren’t better roles or better paychecks available. And so while turnover might be low, it might only be a measure of the desire for job security, not of true engagement.  

On the other hand, it would be difficult to argue that an employee who is passionate about the company and the product will not put this passion into their work and provide the highest quality work. So in addition to looking at turnover, we need to examine passion. Passion comes with commitment, endurance, and ownership, and those elements are key to a company’s long-term success. 

The good news is that brands have been measuring sentiment successfully for a long time with their customers, with what they call the passion index. That index measures the intensity of consumer passion for brands among users of online communities. Now, they need to apply the same philosophy with understanding their employees. 

So where to start?

Companies should use all the tools available to them: employee surveys, engagement rates on Slack or any internal chat platform, ratings on job boards, as well as space utilization in their offices. Are people coming to the office when it’s not mandatory, and how are they using space when they do? Understanding the nuances of how people interact both virtually and in person is critical to understanding what cultural elements need addressing.

It should go without saying (but it’s worth saying anyway) that all this data should be anonymous. Companies shouldn’t be checking that it’s Rob who sent five messages and went to the office one time last week, but rather analyzing all of this data in aggregate to understand patterns within their employee base, which will unveil the realities of a company’s culture.

Looking at the turnover rate is just not enough anymore to understand how a company’s culture is performing and ultimately ensure a company’s long-term success. But the passion index that combines all these data sources into a comprehensive score will give us something close. 

Measuring moments that matter

DoorDash shared recently in an interview that its People and Workplace team has been working hard at creating moments that matter. These curated in-person touchpoints drive connectivity to the company’s mission, vision, and its people. Those moments increase employees’ engagement and passion for the company. And that makes a difference in productivity, innovation, and resilience. Moments that matter are varied and diverse. It could be a company all hands, a mentorship opportunity, a training, an offsite, an employee resource group celebration, etc.

So companies should measure every step of the way. Are people more satisfied after attending one of these events? Are they flocking to the office when they know a moment that matters is happening? Is their engagement higher after each moment that matters?

Using software to understand engagement patterns across platforms and within physical space can complement research conducted by HR and give a full picture into how employees feel about their work, your offices, and their teammates.

If you’re only measuring turnover, by the time you realize you have a culture problem that shows up in that metric, it might be too late to course-correct and you’ve certainly already lost precious talent. 

Measuring engagement in real time, in new, innovative ways that reflect how dynamic the workplace experience is today, can prevent costly turnover, and even better, help companies shape a culture that’s enduring, uplifting, and sticky, as they say on product teams. 

Studies confirm that purpose, values, and personal growth are essential for employees to do great work. If companies shift their employee engagement measurement to something closer to a passion index, they’ll be able to allocate the right resources to real problems at hand, and have a greater impact on creating a winning culture that will provide the most ROI for the company in the long term.

Nellie Hayat is the workplace innovation lead at Density and the host of the Beyond Work webcast and a leader of the future of work movement.