Measuring Staff Turnover at Faculty and Departmental Level in Universities to Support Better Staff and Talent Management

Focusing on headline staff turnover rates for universities can mask wide variations for individual departments. Whilst universities should benchmark against their peers, it is imperative they also analyse local data, to reflect internal structures and categories of staff. The inverted Nomogramma di Gandy is a useful tool for investigating staff turnover and identifying outliers and patterns. Understanding internal and external dynamics informs action to support organisations in meeting their strategic aims and objectives. Talent management in higher education is increasingly complex with the age-diversity of its predominantly knowledge-type employees and recruitment and retention dynamics differentially influenced by gender, inter-generational attitudes and legislation. There are particular talent management challenges for research, because funding sources can encourage the use of fixed-term contracts. Whilst the scrutiny of turnover has traditionally been reactive, a proactive approach is essential to underpin an organisation’s talent management; so that strategically it can retain its best talent