‘Turnover contagion’ makes employees more likely to leave after seeing coworkers do so

An employee’s intention to resign often can have a domino effect on coworkers.

“Turnover contagion is defined as an employee’s transmission of their intention to leave to people around them and occurs as humans tend to compare themselves to others or imitate others’ withdrawal from the organization,” according to a new Visier Insights Report. “In other words, when an employee begins to behave in a way that lets their colleagues think they may be looking for a new job or if they actually resign, other employees may be triggered to follow suit.”

Visier finds that when a voluntary resignation occurs, employees on their team are 9.1% more likely to leave. They are 7.7% more likely to leave after an involuntary resignation occurs on their team. Other key findings from the report include:

• Smaller teams are most at risk of turnover contagion. Employees who work on teams of two are 25.1% more likely to resign after a team member quits. Employees who work on teams of three to five are 12.1% more likely to resign after a team member quits, while employees on teams of six to 10 are 14.6% more likely to quit.
• Turnover contagion can cross from one quarter to the next: The moment an employee resigns, the risk of turnover contagion for other members on the team lasts for 135 days. For “involuntary turnover,” the time window is shortened to 105 days.
• Turnover contagion peaks around 70 days after the first resignation. The moment an employee resigns, the risk of turnover contagion for other members increases. The critical timeframe for turnover contagion is around 45 days and peaks at 70 days after the initial resignation

“Our findings that are based on actual, live employee events data validate what has long been suspected: Among other possible reasons, people do indeed leave an organization in reaction to their team members’ resignation, because such important events do not happen in isolation but within the social setting of a work group or team,” the report concludes. “Our analysis shows that team members of a resigning employee are at least 9.1% more likely to quit within 135 days of their colleagues’ resignation, an effect that is stronger for smaller teams between two and 10 team members and which peaks around 70 days after the first person resigned.

Read more: Top 10 industries people quit the most

“The value of these findings lies in the fact that this information serves valuable insights about the potential risk of turnover contagion, which allows HR, business leaders and line managers to plan for risk assessment and mitigation strategies for talent retention in a more targeted manner.”