how a succesful job-share scheme delivers roi

In an economy where employment is high and attrition is also on the increase, competition for talent is fierce. At an average UK attrition rate of 15%, this poses a huge cost to organisations and with this knowledge, it’s more important than ever that companies measure, monitor and understand why their employees are leaving and work out what it will take to retain their top talent.

​Leading research stats suggest that one of the top three reasons employees either leave their company or accept a role with a company is work-life balance (WLB). We’ve identified three separate pieces of research (LinkedIn, Onrec and Bamboo HR) which consistently indicate a massive 30% of employees that leave, do so due to work life balance.

30% of employees that leave, do so due to work life balance.

How much does it really cost to replace an employee that leaves?
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It’s widely published that the true cost of replacing a staff member averages at just over £30,000 and varies by sector with accountancy/ legal sectors bearing the highest costs. 

This figure includes direct costs such as advertising, recruitment/ placement fees (averaging at around £5,433), and incorporates the cost (wages) of a new employee that are spent before they reach full productivity, which is between 4 and 12 months depending on the role/ sector plus management time office set up etc.  However, it doesn’t include the indirect impact of disengaged employees which can happen when someone leaves and may lead to increased sickness/ absence costs.

This figure of £30,000, may seem high to employers if not all elements are counted as part of replacement costs, perhaps because they are considered an overhead or a necessary cost of running the business?. However, with new recruits taking an average of 27.6 days of HR director time to hire and get up to speed (Onrec), plus onboarding, training and simply paying a recruit before they are productive and the costs soon start to pile up. Overall, this is a significant cost to businesses of all sizes;

• If your company employs 10,000 staff and you have an attrition rate of 8.5%, this could translate into an annual cost of replacing staff that leave due to WLB of £7.6 million.
• If your company employs 250 staff and you have an attrition rate of 10%, this could still translate into an annual cost of replacing staff that leave due to WLB of £180,000.

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Use our calculator to see how much regrettable attrition due to WLB could be costing your business

Questions to answer about your organisation
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Implementation of an effective Job-share Scheme starts with identifying and quantifying the cost of the status quo.  So start with:

How many full-time employees had to be replaced last year?

Why did your employees leave? 

What proportion of departures were due to work-life balance? (if not known assume 30%)

What did this cost? (if not known assume £30k per replacement)

Our research says that 43% of candidates would actively look for a Job-share vacancy and 38% of candidates would be interested in Job-sharing if their employer offered it.  Applying these stats to your total headcount, or even just predicted early leavers, or actual previous departures will give you an idea of what positive impact you should aim for.

I hope you find our calculator useful and thought provoking, if you would like to discuss how a successful Job-share Scheme could help you to reduce people costs, please contact me on sara.horsfall@ginibee.com.