. Our internal research at Facebook suggests that for three reasons, it would be a big mistake to abandon them today.At Facebook, we’ve found that simply asking our people how long they intend to stay is more than twice as accurate at foretelling their future turnover than machine-learning forecasts by an industry leader in predictive analytics.
We learn a lot from surveys even when people don’t participate. People who don’t fill out either of our two annual surveys are 2.6 times more likely to leave in the next six months.Not having a regular survey sends a clear message: you don’t care about people’s opinions. The act of filling out a survey gives them a specific channel for expressing voice.
Differential participation rates tell us what issues matter most to our people: 95% complete the engagement survey, more than two-thirds fill out our annual diversity survey, and more than half do our benefits survey. And it turns out that employees value having a say. When we send out a survey, we get a surprising volume of write-in comments: on average, 61% of our people submit their own feedback and suggestions, and each person touches on five distinct topics.