Deloitte Australia is hoping to reduce staff turnover by identifying employees who are likely to leave the firm through the use of predictive analytics software.
Speaking at IBM's Information On Demand conference in Las Vegas, Deloitte Australia business systems director James Huckerby told delegates that in 2011 its CEO identified staff retention as a burning issue.
The firm, which is an IBM customer, implemented SPSS analytics software on its iPads which fed data about its 6000 staff into the software. The key drivers behind using SPSS is to identify staff attrition rates and employees who may want to leave the firm so that any issues can be addressed with employees and potentially offer them a change in salary or other compensation.
Lack of data scientists could derail big data projects: IBM
Q&A: Statistician Nate Silver talks big data, sports analysis
“The beauty of this approach is that it is supporting a [staff] review cycle every six months,” he said. “The next step we are taking is to use the optimisation technology and decision management of SPSS to identify ways of retaining employees.”
Deloitte Australia went through the data to identity some of the key drivers behind attrition, such as a long commute to work.
“Using the system, I can see if an employee has a 13 per cent chance of leaving in the next three months. I can also drill down and see the variable that will cause the staff member to leave,” Huckerby said.
“There are a number of variables we can act upon. For instance, the group that had the highest risk of leaving were high achievers that had taken very little leave in the last six months.”
He added that Deloitte Australia plans to implement optimisation technology into the SPSS model which will allow it to identify staff retention requirements such as a new iPad.
“For example, a lot of the time with our high achievers, we offer them a residency in the [Deloitte] New York office for a year. That will keep them in the organisation and they come back [to Australia] very happy.”
Hamish Barwick travelled to Information on Demand in Las Vegas as a guest of IBM
Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick Follow CIO Australia on Twitter: @CIO_Australia