Triceratops Case Study
Background
Company engaged us in 2023.
Attrition had increased significantly (8% to 23% annualized rate).
Exit interview process pointed towards compensation as an underlying factor.
Salary survey data showed compensation was competitive & no difficulty back-filling with the same compensation plan.
However, even new people were quitting shortly after joining.
The problem was particularly acute in the sales organization.
Survey Results
We surveyed leavers from the last year.
The results showed that people were generally choosing to leave (push) rather than being recruited away.
They also showed that people were generally negative about their experience at the company and that further the source of this negativity was not compensation.
In our experience companies in this bottom left-hand quadrant have a problem that is within their control to fix.
Our next step was to identify how long this had been going on…
Trend Shift
We extended the survey to include leavers from the two prior years*.
In 2021 and 2022 leavers from across the company were generally leaving because they had been recruited away (“pull”) and were generally positive about their time at the company (“promoter”).
This changed dramatically in 2023, with far more employees deciding to leave (“push”) rather than being recruited away. Those who left were much more negative about their time at the company (“detractor”).
From this we were able to identify that the problem started to occur in 2023.
* In general we prefer to survey ex-employees at a consistent time post employment (typically 3 months).
Sales Impact
Focusing on the sales organization we found that the effect was even more dramatic.
The employees who had left in 2023 delivered incredibly poor scores. Some noted that they had quit without even securing a new position – they just didn’t want to work at the company anymore (the ultimate example of “Push”) and all were highly critical of the company, with not one person saying they would consider recommending Triceratops as a place to work.
We also received several very specific concerns related to certain members of the management team.
This analysis confirmed that Sales had suffered a significant setback in 2023.
Team Comparison
Comparing different teams from across the company we noted that the push and detractor scores were highest in sales and in those parts of the company that interfaced with sales most closely.
This pattern together with the comments that we received gave us a clear indication that something had happened in the sales team.
Leadership Impact
At the beginning of 2023 Triceratops had recruited a new sales leader. This individual had initiated a program of substantial change. This is not necessarily unexpected when a new leader arrives, but what was different in this case was the level of negative sentiment that was generated. This negative sentiment was supported by specific examples of questionable behavior.
Our analysis demonstrated multiple examples of unsatisfactory behavior. It was evident that the executive had conducted themselves in a manner that was not aligned to the cultural values of the company, and they were asked to leave. Once the executive had left, the remaining employees felt comfortable to come forward and raise several concerns.
Conclusion
- The existing exit interview process was providing incorrect data – employees were not leaving because of compensation. In fact, some were leaving with no job to go to.
- Ex-employees were dramatically more honest in their confidential survey responses than they had been in their 1:1 exit meetings.
- The company had a serious problem with counter cultural and potentially unethical behavior.
Current employees were fearful of retribution and did not come forward until the individual in question had left the company. - Several ex-employees noted that they believed the senior management of the company condoned the behavior of the individual.
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