Resolving an Attrition Crisis with Enteprise Social Network Analysis - A Case Study

Enterprise Social Network Analysis – A Case Study

Karthikeyan IyerFounder Director, Co-Crafter,

Crafitti Consulting

We live in a world of networksHigh School relationships

Web Pages

Dolphin relationships

Milgram’s Experiment – Six Degrees of Freedom

Around the world in 6 hops!

08/04/2023 Crafitti Consulting Pvt. Ltd. 3

We are all connected . . .

But some people have more power and influence than others . . .

Social Network Analysis – Studying people and

relationships between them

DegreeRange

Closeness

Betweenness

Centrality

Prestige

Size

InclusivenessComponent

Connectivity

Connectedness

Density

Symmetry

CentralizationTransitivity

Star

Liaison

BridgeGatekeeper

Isolate

How to identify, who is more important in the network?

Granovetter – Strength of Weak Ties• Despite being clustered in our own links, we connect with other such clusters

through random, long-range, infrequent, and weak ties. The sociologist Mark Granovetter in his now classic paper of 1973 titled Strength of Weak Ties showed that effective social coordination happens through the presence of occasional weak ties between individuals and not through densely interlocking strong ties.


A Structural Hole

In social networks, a small number of people can create a non-linear shift in behavior

Connectors are those with wide social circles. Mavens are knowledgeable people. Salesmen are charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills. They exert "soft" influence rather than forceful power.


Malcolm Gladwell – Tipping Points

Net Promoter Score


Promoter 9-10Passively Satisfied

7-8

Detractor 0-6

How Likely is it that you would recommend [brand

or company X] to a friend or colleague?

Not at all likely Extremely LikelyNeutral

0 105

Competent Jerks and Lovable Fools

Competent Jerks Lovable Star

Incompetent Jerk Lovable Fool

Increasing competence

Increasing LikabilitySource: Casciaro & Lobo, HBR

April 8, 2023 8© Crafitti Consulting Private Limited


A Case Study

The context in which the Enterprise Social Network Survey was conducted


Recession

Acquisition Management FluxAttrition Crisis

Employees resigning in bunchesImpact on project deliveryImpact on project pipeline

Regular HR approaches to mitigate attrition were ineffective

Network Effects in an Enterprise Social Network context

• Finding key opinion leaders who might be (knowingly or unknowingly) driving non-linear attrition behaviour in the enterprise

• Finding key opinion leaders who can beneficially influence the problem at hand


Key Opinion Leaders


Most approached

Connected to many others in the network (or to well connected others)

Influencers, negotiators

A Simple Survey

Who in your work network do you interact with most often?

Collaboration on regular work activities

Mentorship/ advice

Brainstorming/ Developing an idea

Solving a work problem

Resolving a crisis

To connect you to the right people to get something done

To champion a cause or sell something to customers, top management or to other peer groups

How likely is it that you would recommend your company to a friend or colleague?

Choose a number on the scale 0 – 10, where 0 means “not at all likely”, 5 means “neutral” and 10 means “extremely likely”.


The Enterprise Social Network

The survey was answered by close to 80% of the total employee strength. Based on the inputs, the following employee social network emerged

Analyzing with Degree Centrality

High attrition

Low attrition

Betweenness Centrality brings out the connectors

Some surprises from the analysis of the Enterprise Social Network


Many of the key opinion leaders were net detractors, leading to accelerated decline in the team morale

Some of the youngest employees were net promoters but were invisible to the leadership

Many of the perceived key opinion leaders (role based) were actually not key opinion leaders (as per the network)!

To generate a tipping point for positive employee morale, net detractors had to be first converted to net promoters.

Barring one of the functional teams, none of the other teams had a senior expert or leader who could exert a calming influence in pressure situations.

Emergent Action

Converting Passively satisfied key opinion leaders to promoters

Counseling Net detractors – letting go of some

More cross-functional responsibility to young promoters

Reworking hierarchical role definitions

Increasing interactions with branch office teams


Results• Prior to this intervention, the company was receiving 10

resignation letters on an average every week! For an organization with just 120 employees this was disastrous, putting immense pressure on recruitment cycles, project delivery and most importantly team morale.– Post intervention based on employee social network analysis, the

attrition was immediately stemmed.

• Earlier, the company was letting go of employees who had a positive impact in the social network, thereby unwittingly accelerating the process of iteration– Post intervention, key opinion leaders and net promoters were

retained with a direct impact on overall employee morale



Enterprise Social Networks

• How your networks are structured will determine how your enterprise responds to external stimuli

• Are you trying to fight non-linearity with linear structures?

• Is your enterprise finding it difficult to innovate despite the best intentions? Form will define behavior . . .

Innovative organizations will design their structures to maximize benefits from network

effects.


ESNA can be a powerful tool for operational innovation

•are never linear (even though we report mean attrition rates) – they ebb and flow, much like population densities of animals in a natural reserve.

Attrition patterns

•in reality, never actually follows linear patterns – some teams at some particular times seem to be more “lucky”

Sales

•happen in clusters, without any obvious reason and completely unconnected with the flows of R&D investment

New breakthro

ughs in R&D

How your networks are structured will determine how your enterprise responds to

external stimuli

Are you trying to fight non-linearity with linear structures?

Is your enterprise finding it difficult to innovate despite the best intentions? Form

will define behavior . . .

Innovative organizations will design their structures to maximize

benefits from network effects.

Thank You!Looking forward to craft

innovation together!

Karthikeyan IyerFounder Director, Co-crafter

Crafitti Consulting Private [email protected]

Resolving an Attrition Crisis with Enteprise Social Network Analysis - A Case Study

Documents

work network

network effects

social networks

net promoters

key opinion leadersmost

effective social coordination

wide social circles

net promoter scorehow