Why the Claims Unit Is Leaving: Reading an Engagement Dip
Crestline Mutual's claims unit employs 120 people across 14 teams. The annual engagement survey drew an 81% response rate. Unit engagement scored 54% favorable against a company average of 72%, and 'I would recommend Crestline as a place to work' fell 14 points in one year. Annualized voluntary turnover is 27% versus 12% company-wide, and 60% of leavers had less than 18 months of tenure. Supervisors average 14 direct reports. Mandatory overtime has averaged nine hours per person per week for two quarters because of a backlog. Schedule changes are posted with as little as 24 hours' notice. Two employees have informally complained that shift bids favor the supervisor's favorites, but no grievance was filed. Exit interviews are not conducted; the only leaver data is a checkbox in the HRIS. The VP of claims says the issue is 'people are tired after a hard year, and the survey is just noise.' HR has headcount, tenure, performance rating, overtime hours by team, and shift-bid records.
1. Build three competing hypotheses for the engagement and turnover gap and specify the analyses that would separate them.
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Hypothesis 1: workload and overtime. Nine mandatory overtime hours per week for two quarters is a concrete, measurable burden. Test it by joining overtime hours by team to engagement scores and turnover by team. If the highest-overtime teams show the lowest engagement and highest turnover, workload is a major driver. If overtime is evenly distributed but engagement varies sharply, workload is a background factor, not the differentiator.
Hypothesis 2: supervisory quality and perceived fairness. The shift-bid complaints point to process fairness. Test by comparing engagement and turnover by supervisor, controlling for team size and tenure. Audit the shift-bid records: are the same people winning repeatedly, and is the rule documented? A fairness problem will show as low scores on specific items (fairness, recognition) rather than across the board.
Hypothesis 3: early-tenure onboarding and career pathing. Sixty percent of leavers had under 18 months of tenure. Test turnover by tenure band and by hire cohort. If first-year turnover is concentrated in the first 90 days, the problem is hiring or onboarding; if it peaks at 12-18 months, the problem is growth and pay progression.
What is missing. Exit interviews. The checkbox in the HRIS cannot distinguish pay, schedule, and supervisor. Start structured exit interviews immediately and add stay interviews for high performers; the first 20 conversations will narrow these hypotheses faster than another survey.
2. Design a 90-day action plan separating quick wins from structural fixes, with owners.
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Quick wins (days 1-30).
- Publish shift-bid rules and post schedules 14 days ahead where operationally possible. Owner: claims operations manager.
- Begin structured exit interviews within five days of every separation; report themes monthly. Owner: HR business partner.
- Start stay interviews with the 20 highest-risk employees (high performance, low tenure, high overtime). Owner: supervisors with HR coaching.
- Publish a weekly overtime report by team so the backlog burden is visible. Owner: workforce analytics.
Medium-term (days 30-60).
- Reduce supervisor span from 14 to about 8 by adding two team leads or reorganizing teams. Owner: VP of claims with HR.
- Create a backlog reduction plan with realistic staffing or process changes; overtime is a symptom of capacity, not a motivational tool. Owner: operations with finance.
- Audit the shift-bid outcomes for the last four cycles and correct any documented unfairness. Owner: HR and operations.
Structural (days 60-90).
- Build a claims career ladder with defined skills and pay progression at 12 and 24 months. Owner: HR with compensation.
- Add engagement and turnover by supervisor to the people dashboard and to supervisor goals. Owner: HR analytics.
- Retrain supervisors on schedule communication and recognition. Owner: learning and development.
Why this order. Schedule predictability and exit data are cheap, fast, and reduce immediate attrition. Span of control and career pathing take longer but address the structural drivers.
3. Define success metrics and explain why the engagement score alone is a poor outcome measure.
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Outcome metrics. Voluntary turnover overall and by tenure band; regretted turnover (high performers); first-year attrition; overtime hours per person per week; schedule notice days; internal mobility into claims roles; and absence rate. These are observable behaviors, not opinions.
Leading indicators. Exit interview themes, stay-interview concerns, shift-bid appeals, and the specific survey items on fairness, recognition, and workload rather than the composite score.
Why the engagement score is a poor sole outcome. It is lagging, annual, and easy to move without changing anything real: a communications campaign can lift the number for a quarter. It is also a composite, so a rise in one dimension can mask a fall in another. And it is not the business problem; the business problem is that 27% of a 120-person unit is leaving, which costs roughly 30 separations a year at perhaps $8,000-$12,000 each in replacement and productivity, or $240,000-$360,000.
How to use the score. Keep it as a diagnostic, reported by team and by item, alongside behavioral data. Set targets: voluntary turnover below 18% within 12 months, overtime below four hours per week, schedule notice at 14 days for 90% of changes, and 100% of separations with an exit interview. Review monthly with the VP of claims. A score that moves while turnover does not is not success.