How Leaders can Disrupt the Spread of Turnover

By Caitlin Porter

Employee turnover is a prominent concern for organizations. Unforeseen employee departures often cause disruptions in workflows that delay task completion, increase workloads for remaining employees, and make it more difficult to achieve business objectives. Moreover, the financial costs associated with filling an open position and onboarding a new hire can exceed 100% of the annual salary for the position. Employee turnover can also be contagious, as coworkers may choose to follow suit. Left unchecked, employee turnover may spread throughout a work group, culminating in multiple instances of turnover that result in decreased organizational performance and lower customer service quality. Although turnover contagion is more likely in dysfunctional organizations or workgroups, it can also occur in effective organizations with high-quality human resources practices. To ensure that workgroups retain members and continue functioning effectively, leaders need to be aware of what turnover contagion is, what the warning signs are, and steps to take to disrupt the spread of turnover. 

What is Turnover Contagion? 

Every employee has a probability of leaving the organization. For many employees, the incentives offered by their employers (e.g., competitive salary or wages, relationships with coworkers, opportunities for advancement, benefits, and perquisites) are commensurate with employees’ contributions to their employers (e.g., performance, engagement), which is why they stay. However, some employees experience an imbalance between their contributions and organizational incentives, leading to disengagement, job search, and turnover. Turnover contagion is the term used to describe the spread of these turnover-related thoughts, feelings, and behaviors amongst employees, and it occurs in two ways. 

First, an employee may indicate that they have been thinking about quitting by performing “pre-quitting behaviors”. Pre-quitting behaviors include expressing dissatisfaction with aspects of the job or work environment, showing a lack of enthusiasm for the organizational mission, putting less effort into duties, eschewing responsibility, refusing to make long-term plans, or being less concerned with maintaining positive interpersonal relations with leaders or team members. Ultimately, these behaviors indicate a lack of engagement. When employees openly share their dissatisfaction, these negative attitudes can spread amongst the workgroup through a psychological process known as social information processing. How much these negative attitudes permeate the group depends on how influential the dissatisfied employee is within the group. 

Second, an employee may share details of their job search, their plans to leave, or information about alternative employment opportunities. When an employee discusses these details with coworkers, it may prompt coworkers to consider whether their employment situations are as good as that of the departing employee, through a psychological process called social comparison (social comparisons are more likely when coworkers have a personal connection or are like the departing employee). If the coworkers conclude that the departing employee is getting a better deal at a different organization than they are at their current employer, they may begin seeking alternative employment, leading to additional employee turnover events. 

Over time, continuous employee turnover may contribute to a “turnover culture”. Employees discuss turnover events and employer reactions to turnover events, sharing stories within the group and with new hires as they replace departing employees. These stories and employer reactions contribute to beliefs and shared norms regarding the permissiveness of turnover within a workgroup or organization. 

What are the Warning Signs of Turnover Contagion?

There are two sets of behaviors leaders need to pay attention to when seeking to disrupt the spread of turnover. First, leaders should be attentive to pre-quitting behaviors, such as those discussed previously. Initial research has shown that these behaviors are identifiable by managers and precede employee turnover. 

Second, leaders should attend to turnover itself. Although any employee turnover event may trigger coworker turnover, some turnover events are more impactful than others. Research studies have revealed that certain leavers have more of an influence on the turnover of work colleagues with whom they have a relationship. Thus, leaders must be aware of who is leaving their workgroups and who these leavers have relationships with. Specifically, leaders should be mindful of turnover contagion when: 

1. The leaver is moving on to a better job. When employees leave for a better job (as opposed to leaving for personal reasons), coworkers are more likely to engage in social comparisons, asking themselves whether there is a better job on the market for them. 
2. The leaver is a high-performer or someone in a higher-ranking position. Seeing a successful colleague move on may encourage ambitious coworkers to consider whether they are taking the right steps to advance their own careers. Coworkers may engage in social comparisons that encourage them to take proactive steps towards improving their own work arrangement, perhaps by seeking alternative employment. 
3. The leaver advises others. Initial research has shown that employees are more likely to quit when someone who they seek advice from quits. In fact, people who give a lot of advice and ask for little advice from others can initiate “exit chains” from business networking groups. 
4. The leaver collaborates with or has complementary skillsets to others. Employees are also more likely to quit when their collaborators, project team members, or coworkers with complementary skillsets quit. In fact, “co-mobility” may occur, where coworkers who work together will leave within 1-2 months of one another for the same employer. 

Furthermore, departing employees may retain personal connections to (now former) coworkers, establishing a conduit for information about employment opportunities elsewhere. 

How can Leaders Intervene? 

Leaders are in the best position to disrupt the spread of turnover in their workgroups by proactively seeking information from their followers about their work situations and taking steps to ensure that followers have a fair balance between their contributions to the organization and the incentives offered by the organization. There are four steps that leaders can leverage to gain insights into how to balance employee contributions with organizational incentives and in so doing, halt the spread of employee turnover. 

1. Conduct exit interviews. When an employee leaves, you should seek to understand what led to their decision. Although employees may not feel comfortable being completely transparent, they will likely share some useful details. For instance, if they are leaving for a better position, ask about the features of the job that are better so that you can take steps to rectify less than optimal aspects of the work environment. 
2. Understand the interpersonal relationships within your work group. A key leadership competency is understanding the interpersonal dynamics within a workplace. Understanding how people are connected and how closely they are connected can provide insights into who is most likely to be impacted by an employee’s turnover decision. Such knowledge provides insights into who may need additional assistance with their workloads (e.g., collaborator, someone in a similar functional position) and who may be more at risk for departure (i.e., a close friend of the leaver, someone with a similar personal or professional situation as the leaver). 
3. Conduct stay interviews. Stay interviews should be conducted with high-performing employees, employees who exhibit pre-quitting behaviors, and employees who are at risk for turnover following an employee departure (e.g., friend of a leaver). It is useful to have a conversation with employees to understand what factors are leading to disengagement, what they enjoy about their work, and what challenges they are experiencing. Think creatively about how to fulfill your employees needs at work and identify ways to improve the work environment to promote engagement. Even small concessions serve as gestures that make remaining employees feel like a valued part of the workgroup. 
4. Promote and reinforce a developmental climate. Research suggests that employee turnover is less likely to lead to coworker turnover intentions when remaining employees have access to developmental opportunities and rewards. Thus, one tactic for dampening the spread of turnover is to promote and reinforce a climate where development and growth is valued and rewarded. One way to do this is to regularly check-in with your employees about their performance, set goals for their development, and help them understand their future at your employing organization. Indeed, many leaders are moving towards more regular performance discussions in which they act as a coach; such practices are associated with increased work role clarity and engagement. 

A Key Caveat

Although employee turnover can be costly for financial and operational performance, not all turnover is bad for an organization or workgroup. It is up to a discerning leader to understand which instances of turnover are functional (e.g., departure of a low performer), which are dysfunctional, and when to take action to reduce the spread of turnover. This requires leaders to become proactive problem solvers that identify stakeholder needs and how to fulfill them.  

For additional information please reach out to the author or see her research on this topic:  

Porter, C. M., & Rigby, J. R. (2021). The Turnover Contagion Process: An Integrative Review of Theoretical and Empirical Research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42, 212-228.