Employee privacy: Why privacy matters to the hiring, retaining and motivating of staff

Employee privacy:  Why privacy matters to the hiring, retaining and motivating of staff
Firms that successfully recruit, retain and inspire staff stand to reap significant competitive benefits and privacy has a vital role to play.

At the heart of our practice is the idea that privacy is all about people. Using the results of the research we conducted, we estimate that £30 per year per head of additional privacy spend has the potential to reduce employee turnover by around 5% - this represents a massive 16:1 return on investment.

We have done a lot of work understanding how employees perceive privacy, and we think this is a neglected area. It is our firm opinion that privacy drives employee loyalty and employee engagement. We also believe that it is possible to put a price on this because there is a cost to replacing employees – hence the calculation above.

Our estimations are based on the following:

  • Losing and retaining staff are costly activities. Our research revealed that on average one third of staff change jobs within their sector from one year to the next. We identified significant industry variations with arts and entertainment being the highest at 35% and households as employers being the lowest at 18%.
  • Maintaining a workforce is also costly with HR costs typically between 1 to 4% of revenues.

  • When it comes to the cost of replacing an employee, our research concluded that the average costs of replacing a £25k+ employee was over £30k. Of this, logistical costs so hiring temps, recruitment and HR costs, management time etc. - accounted for just 20% with the overriding 80% accounted for by the cost of bringing the new employee ‘up to speed’ (or optimum productivity level).

Employee loyalty and its improvement thus has considerable, measurable value. 

To read more, download our eBook Phase 1 or watch our webinar.

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Trust can be an important determinant of brand, and is good for business.

Good privacy plays a big part in both wellbeing and 'employer brand' and brings significant business performance benefits.