The first step to ensuring your retention
data collection techniques will result in useful information is to identify,
select, and invite the appropriate individuals to participate. Whether you are using questionnaires,
retention surveys, interviews or focus groups to collect this information, if
you don’t include the appropriate participants the information you receive may
not provide you with a clear picture of the retention issues your company
faces. Including the right participants
means that the information you obtain will be useful and relevant to your
company’s specific retention issues.
To begin, identify and select individuals
to participate who best reflect the group of individuals for whom a problem
exists, and a solution needs to be created.
For example, if the identified problem is that technology employees
leave the organization prior to their second-year anniversary, then technology
employees who are soon to meet their second-year anniversary should be
represented in the chosen data collection technique. In another example, if the identified problem
is that individual contributors recently promoted to management positions are
leaving the company, then all recently promoted new managers should be
represented in the data collection technique.
Include at least 10 percent of the total
researched population in the technique.
For example, if there are 1,000 employees who represent the target
audience and you are conducting a focus group, plan to include 100 individuals
in the focus groups. Invite 10-15 participants to ensure attendance of 6-12
participants of each focus group, the ideal focus group size. For techniques that are easier to administer
such as questionnaires and retention surveys, a larger percentage of the
researched population can be included for even more accurate results.