The Number Your Board Doesn’t See
I asked a COO what his attrition was costing him. He knew his rate. 25%. Not terrible for the sector, he said. 750 agents. Normal for a BPO. What he hadn’t done — what almost nobody does — was put an actual number on it. 750 agents. 25% attrition. £5,000 replacement cost […]
When One Person Leaves, Three More Are at Risk
An 18% overtime spike. That’s the number that most reliably tells you who’s leaving next. Not the person who just handed in their notice. The people sitting closest to the empty desk. When someone leaves, their workload doesn’t disappear. It redistributes. Across colleagues who are already fully stretched. Schedule volatility goes up. […]
Attrition Isn’t a HR Problem. It’s an Operational One.
The answer to your attrition problem isn’t in an engagement survey. It’s in your WFM system. Attrition gets filed under HR. Turnover rate tracked in the HR dashboard. Replacement managed by the recruitment team. Exit interviews conducted and their themes noted somewhere in a quarterly report. Meanwhile, the signals that precede the departure live somewhere […]
Your Best People Are Carrying Your Worst Attrition Problem
The people most at risk of leaving are often the ones you’d least expect. Because they never complain. I’ve spent a long time working in and around workforce management. And there’s a pattern I’ve seen in organisation after organisation that the data consistently confirms. When a team loses someone, the work lands on the people […]
The Attrition Contagion: Why Losing 10% of Your Team Puts 30% at Risk
By the time the dashboard shows a retention problem, the secondary wave is already building. Attrition is contagious. Not in a metaphorical sense. In a measurable, operationally visible, predictable sense. When a high performer leaves, the colleagues who worked most closely with them absorb the immediate impact first. The workload redistribution, the loss of institutional […]
The Number Your Board Doesn’t See: The True Cost of Attrition
The Number Your Board Doesn’t See: The True Cost of Attrition He knew his attrition rate. 25%. Not terrible for the sector, he said. A BPO with 750 agents, operating in a market where turnover in the 20 to 30 percent range is considered normal. What he hadn’t done — what almost nobody does — […]
When One Person Leaves, Three More Are at Risk
Attrition doesn’t end with the exit interview. That’s where the real damage starts. Attrition doesn’t end with the exit interview. That’s where the real damage starts. Most organisations track attrition as a headcount number. Someone resigns, the number goes up, the replacement process begins. That’s the extent of the analysis. What almost nobody tracks is […]
What HCM Partners Should Really Be Selling Right Now (Hint: It’s Not More Licences)
Why predictive workforce analytics is the adjacent value play every HCM and WFM partner needs By Jonathan Hawkins If you’re an HCM or WFM partner — implementation firm, reseller, managed service provider — your commercial model is under pressure. Platform commoditisation is compressing margins. Clients expect more value from existing relationships. And the competitive pitch […]
The Contact Centre Attrition Maths Your Board Hasn’t Seen
Why the true cost of agent turnover is two to three times what your finance team thinks it isBy Jonathan Hawkins Ask your finance team what agent attrition costs. They’ll give you a number. It’ll be wrong. Not slightly wrong. Structurally wrong. The standard calculation captures recruitment fees, onboarding costs, and maybe a few weeks […]
Your WFM Data Is Worth More Than Your Engagement Scores. Here’s Why.
The untapped predictive value hiding in your workforce management platformBy Jonathan Hawkins Your workforce management platform knows more about your employees’ emotional state than your engagement survey does. It just doesn’t know it yet. Every shift swap request, every pattern of overtime acceptance or refusal, every change in break behaviour, every adherence anomaly — these […]