DOI: https://doi.org/10.15368/theses.2020.153
Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/2260
Date of Award
12-2020
Degree Name
MS in Industrial Engineering
Department/Program
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
College
College of Engineering
Advisor
Tali Freed
Advisor Department
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Advisor College
College of Engineering
Abstract
Churn prediction is a common data mining problem that many companies face across industries. More commonly, customer churn has been studied extensively within the telecommunications industry where there is low customer retention due to high market competition. Similar to customer churn, employee churn is very costly to a company and by not deploying proper risk mitigation strategies, profits cannot be maximized, and valuable employees may leave the company. The cost to replace an employee is exponentially higher than finding a replacement, so it is in any company’s best interest to prioritize employee retention.
This research combines machine learning techniques with undersampling in hopes of identifying employees at risk of churn so retention strategies can be implemented before it is too late. Four different classification algorithms are tested on a variety of undersampled datasets in order to find the most effective undersampling and classification method for predicting employee churn. Statistical analysis is conducted on the appropriate evaluation metrics to find the most significant methods.
The results of this study can be used by the company to target individuals at risk of churn so that risk mitigation strategies can be effective in retaining the valuable employees. Methods and results can be tested and applied across different industries and companies.