The Cost of Employee Retention

Today I became the President of my company's new-hire organization, the Lockheed Martin LMents. I have been involved with this group for over two years now, and I have learned a lot about younger employees and our expectations in the corporate workplace. I really like this particular article about the Millenials and their work habits, "Attracting the twentysomething worker." While a good read, this article isn't the reason why I'm posting in my Decision Modeling Portfolio.

Apparently there is a trend that if an employee stays with a company for about five years, that employee is more likely to stay or be retained. Lockheed Martin has some proprietary info regarding the replacement cost of an employee, and apparently it's pretty high. Thus, enter the LMents. Our Modus Operandi consists of creating a community for new hires which will help them assimilate into the corporate culture. I'm not sure if the LMents succeeded in stemming the exodus of young employees, but our budget was increased a significant amount from last year, which is a pretty good sign. Let's just say that the company is willing to spend about $20 per person per event to encourage them to attend socials, take professional development lunch n' learns featuring Emory's own Anne Margaret Kocurek, network with management, and attend sporting events, among other things.

How does one measure the propensity to stay with your company? The LMents have created a survey, the results of which are proprietary. But in order to get an idea of what we are looking for in terms of feedback, Download this survey sample. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, or me in this case.