A new study shows that some workplaces were better at keeping employees during the COVID pandemic. The research found that workplaces where employees felt a sense of “collective engagement” before the pandemic had lower turnover rates than those that didn’t.
“People often leave jobs because of factors that employers can control, like changes in management, pay, or benefits,” the researchers noted. “A lot of studies have focused on how these internal factors affect employee retention.”
Reducing the impact
But there’s less research on how employers can reduce turnover caused by external events, which they have no control over—such as a competitor offering higher pay. External events can also be large-scale, like the COVID pandemic. In this study, the researchers used the pandemic to explore how a global event influenced employee turnover.
The study partnered with a U.S. company with over 70,000 employees across all 50 states. Researchers collected data on employee turnover for the company’s stores from January to June 2020, along with information from a detailed employee survey conducted in December 2019 that focused on engagement and satisfaction.
Employee turnover dropped in March and April as the pandemic took hold, but by May and June, it began to rise again. Some stores, however, were better at retaining employees than others, and researchers wanted to understand why.
Collective engagement
The key factor was collective engagement. Stores with lower turnover rates had created a shared sense of purpose and community among employees before the pandemic. “The leadership in those stores had fostered a strong sense of what they were doing and why,” the researchers explained.
While the study didn’t explore specific management techniques used to build this sense of collective engagement, it suggests that having a strong team culture played an important role in keeping employees during the crisis.
Looking ahead, the researchers want to explore whether collective engagement helps reduce turnover during other external events. They’re also interested in studying the specific management strategies that foster engagement, to see which methods are most effective in limiting turnover.
