As I read through the case study by Deloitte Consulting “Reducing Voluntary Turnover

Through Predictive Analytics”, it seemed to be clear that some of the basic areas of the BADIR

framework would be easily identified. Other areas may require a bit of conjecture on our part.

The critical first step in the BADIR framework is to determine the focus of the exercise.

We must identify the “business question”, which is to say we must answer the “what” question.

What is the true issue? What is the real problem? This must be determined before any analysis

can begin. In fact, this rule stands true for almost any situation in which one needs to analyze or

judge something. The true question of what the issue is can be elusive and difficult to pin down

in some situations. In the subject case here, it seems that the question is “How do we reduce

turnover amongst high-producing employees?”.

Next, we need an analysis plan. At the pharmaceutical company in the case study they

had enough aggregate data on their employees to allow for a predictive model of analysis using

historical data from their own sales force. During this stage the team would need to form some

hypotheses regarding suspected causes of the voluntary departures. These theories would help to

drive the data gathering in the next step. The team needs to establish clear goals for the data they

are about to gather.

The Data was gathered from a variety of sources. We know the company was tracking

sales data and they readily knew who the best producers were (hence the company knew that

those leaving were high producers which resulted in the business question above). In order to

add in benefits and other compensation issues the researchers had to incorporate the HR

department and the data contained therein. Having clear goals for the data gathering as well as a

clear business question, the team should be able to narrow down the volume of data they need to
gather. This will help expedite the cleaning and validation of the results. Once gathered, the

researchers had to lay out the data in a way to allow analysis and comparison across employees.

Once the data was sorted, the insights should have become clear. Those high-

productivity employees that were leaving usually had issues with a shortage of benefits in one or

more areas. There should have been clear correlations in the data pointing to specific benefits

that were either absent, lacking, or not well known. Now the company should see that focusing

on improving those benefits should result in retention of high-production employees.

Finally, we have the recommendation. Deloitte would have likely pointed to the benefits

identified as important to the high-producers and suggested directing resources to those benefits.

Management would also have to open lines of communication with those employees who were at

risk in order to offer the improved benefits and to improve morale. Once the risk score went

down, management could move to focus on other employees with higher risk scores. Because

resources were “scarce” as stated, it is reasonable to project that some benefits were reduced or

eliminated in order to direct more efforts and resources towards the benefits that result in

employee retention.

Resources

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. (n.d.). Reducing Voluntary Turnover Through Predictive

Analytics. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/deloitte-

analytics/articles/finding-the-balance.html