Tackling Call Center Turnover
Tutorial Series

Module 2 - Measuring call center turnover

The Call Center Learning Center is proud to present a tutorial series focused on understanding and overcoming agent turnover. This three-part tutorial series will pull from Prosci's research-based toolkits and best practices reports.  Module 1 addressed how to determine what to measure in your center.  This module will discuss methods of measuring turnover in your call center.  Module 3 will focus on how to improve your center's turnover rate.
 

Measuring turnover

Turnover rate measures the percentage of call center agents that leave the call center in a given time period.  Agent turnover rate is also referred to as attrition, retention rate, or agent churn.

There is no standard way of measuring turnover for call centers.  Turnover measurements will be dependent on your call center's specific characteristics, including your objectives and industry.  In order to measure turnover so that you can properly plan replacements for those who leave and identify the causes of controllable turnover, it is recommended that you be able to:

• state the percentage of the workforce that has left in the last month and last year
   
• separate monthly and yearly percentages by:
  • work group
  • reason for leaving (terminations, resignations, promotions, etc.)
  • length of service (mostly under 1 year? 2 months?)
  • part-time and full-time

Sample reports in this tutorial provide both summary and detailed statistics.  These worksheets track turnovers due to promotions, resignations, terminations, disabilities and retirements.  These worksheets also divide turnover by full-time and part-time status and examine how to measure turnover on a monthly basis, over a 12-month period, and for a calendar year.
 

Worksheet A - Sample turnover chart:
Agent Turnover for Group 1 - August 2004
 

Notice the difference between total full-time and part-time employees and their corresponding turnover rate in Worksheet A.  A total of five full-time employees left the call center in August 2004, compared to only one part-time employee for that same time period.  Yet, the part-time turnover rate is twice as high as the full-time total.  When interpreting turnover rate, especially for a shorter time period, be sure to carefully consider the measured group, including the total number of employees in that group.  Consider the job factors and personal circumstances that are different for these two groups.
 

Worksheet B - Sample turnover chart:
Agent Turnover for Group 1 - Last 12 months
 

The reasons employees leave your call center are especially important when determining how to improve your turnover rate (discussed in-depth in Module 3).   In the example in Worksheet B, nine employees were released from the call center over a twelve month period, and seven more employees resigned.  This call center may want to look at specific ways to reduce these numbers in the improvement plan, such as new hiring and screening processes.

Worksheet C - Sample turnover chart:
Agent Turnover for All Groups - Calendar Year

The 12-month comparison between Groups A and B, along with the total call center turnover statistics, provide some interesting insights for this call center.  Based on the three sets of data, the call center should focus on determining the causes of controllable turnover.  Twelve employees left the center in 2004 due to retirement - a cause that cannot be directly controlled by call center management.  Conversely, 37 full-time employees with 12 months or less service in the call center resigned in the calendar year 2004.  This indicates that the call center needs to examine further why the employees resigned and what they can do in the future to prevent additional resignations by these groups.

How often should turnover rate be measured?

If the turnover rate in your call center fluctuates dramatically, it should be reported monthly and summarized yearly.  If your turnover rate remains constant, it is sufficient to calculate and report it yearly, indicating the months when agents are most likely and least likely to leave.

Can monthly turnover be converted to yearly turnover?

If you average your monthly turnover percentages, then you end up with average turnover per month (note the term "month").  On the other hand, if you add the monthly turnover percentages together to calculate the annual turnover, then you are assuming that the base number of staff is constant.

For example, if you had 100 agents in your call center from January through March, but 150 for the rest of the year, then your average monthly turnover is the average of the monthly percentages.  But the annual turnover is not the sum of these monthly percentages since the denominator has changed.

The annual turnover will be the total number of employees that left during the year divided by the average number of employees on staff for that year.  We recommend that you keep the calculations separate, as shown in Worksheets A, B and C. 

Keep monthly and annual calculations separate especially if the base number of staff is not constant.  Do not add up monthly numbers unless the base number of employees is always the same each month.  More importantly, you need to be sure that any call center you are comparing to is measuring turnover in the same way that you are.

Next steps

The turnover measurements you obtain will give you great insight on how to improve your call center's turnover rate.  Module 3 of this tutorial series will focus on improving turnover rate and will provide specific methods for doing so.  To get started immediately in accurately measuring turnover, the Call Center Measurement Toolkit provides in-depth information on how to measure turnover, set goals for turnover rate, and how to reduce turnover in your call center.