Imagine that you’re looking at your company-issued smartphone and you notice an e-mail from LinkedIn: “These companies are looking for candidates like you!” You aren’t necessarily searching for a job, but you’re always open to opportunities, so out of curiosity, you click on the link. A few minutes later your boss appears at your desk. “We’ve noticed that you’re spending more time on LinkedIn lately, so I wanted to talk with you about your career and whether you’re happy here,” she says. Uh-oh.

想象一下，你正在看着公司配备的智能手机，忽然出现了一条信息，原来是领英网的邮件：“这些公司正在招募着你这样的员工！”实际上，你当前并没有找工作的需求，不过你对到来的机会也是保持开放态度的，所以就点开来查看了。几分钟后，老板过来了，跟你说：“公司的系统显示，你最近花了不少时间在领英上，所以我想跟你谈谈你的工作状况。”啊噢！

It’s an awkward and Big Brother–ish scenario—and it’s not so far-fetched. Attrition has always been expensive for companies, but in many industries the cost of losing good workers is rising, owing to tight labor markets and the increasingly collaborative nature of jobs. Thus companies are intensifying¹ their efforts to predict which workers are at high risk of leaving so that managers can try to stop them. Tactics range from garden-variety electronic surveillance to sophisticated analyses of employees’ social media lives.

这真是尴尬的“老大哥式”场景，而且还不是牵强的。公司的损耗总是昂贵的。但由于劳动力市场供不应求，合作式的工作性质，很多行业的人才流失成本在日益增加。因此，各大公司在加大政策力度，预估那些很有可能离职的员工，然后让经理就去劝留他们。小到电子监控，大到员工社交媒体分析，这些监控策略都能派上用场。

Some of this analytical² work is generating fresh insights about what impels³ employees to quit. In general, people leave their jobs because they don’t like their boss, don’t see opportunities for promotion⁴ or growth, or are offered a better gig (and often higher pay); these reasons have held steady for years.

不过，这些分析策略也有可能成为迫使员工离职的原因。总体来看，人们辞职是因为不喜欢自己的老板，看不到晋升的希望，或者有别的更好的薪酬待遇，这些也都是多年来人们辞职的主要原因。

New research conducted by CEB, a Washington-based best-practice insight and technology company, looks not just at why workers quit but also at when. “We’ve learned that what really affects people is their sense of how they’re doing compared with other people in their peer group, or with where they thought they would be at a certain point in life,” says Brian Kropp, who heads CEB’s HR practice. “We’ve learned to focus on moments that allow people to make these comparisons.”

CEB公司，是一家总部在华盛顿的最务实的技术公司，最近开展了一项调查研究，不仅调查了员工为何辞职，还调查了员工何时离职。“我们了解到了，影响人们辞职的因素在于，他们如何看待与其他同事的比较，或者他们预测自己应该达到生命的某一个时间节点。”CEB 人力资源实践项目的指挥官Brian Kropp表示。“我们已经了解到那些让人们做比较的时刻了。”

Some of the discoveries are unsurprising. Work anniversaries (whether of joining the company or of moving into one’s current role) are natural times for reflection, and job-hunting activity jumps by 6% and 9%, respectively, at those points. But other data reveals factors that have nothing directly to do with work. Kropp says, “The big realization⁵ is that it’s not just what happens at work—it’s what happens in someone’s personal life that determines when he or she decides to look for a new job.”

本次调查中的某些发现并不出乎意料。工作纪念日（无论是加入公司的日子，还是转正的日期）都是人们反思的时候，还有找工作的行为，这两个行为的出现比例分别上升了6到9个百分点。不过也有其他的数据显示，这些因素与离职没有直接联系。Kropp表示：“最实际的是，这种情况不仅出现在工作当中，还成为了人们实际生活中是否应该找新工作的理由。”

Technology also provides clues about which star employees might be eyeing the exit. Companies can tell whether employees using work computers or phones are spending time on (or even just opening unsolicited e-mails from) career websites, and research shows that more firms are paying attention to these things. Large companies have also begun tracking badge swipes—employees’ use of an ID to enter and exit the building or the parking garage—to identify patterns that suggest a worker may be interviewing for a job.

技术的发展也为我们提供了依据，能让我们发现哪些出色的员工正在找新的工作。许多公司可以检测到员工是否使用工作电脑或手机浏览求职网站（或只是打开一封来历不明的邮件），研究也发现了越来越多的公司正在关注这个问题。一些大型的公司也开始监控员工的浏览痕迹了，通过分析缓存文件来判断员工是否在找新的工作。

Lori Hock, the CEO of Hudson Americas, a recruitment process outsourcing company that uses Joberate, values predictive intelligence because it helps her reduce clients’ attrition—and spot things that may be driving it. “Is it a bad manager?” she says. “Is there a training component⁶? Are we undervaluing certain positions? It gives you a nice opportunity to think about what the trigger might have been—and to ask questions before you lose talent.”

Lori Hock是美洲哈德逊公司的总裁，她的公司使用Joberate网站作为外包的主要招聘平台，非常重视智能预测。因为它能缓解客户流失的损害，还能检测造成客户流失的原因。“这是一位糟糕的经理吗？”她说，“是否存在培训竞争的对手？我们是否低估了某些职位？这样能给你很好的机会来思考那些促使客户损失的因素，还能在你流失人才之前提出问题。”

Researchers agree that preemptive intervention⁷ is a better way to deal with employees’ wandering eyes than waiting for someone to get an offer and then making a counteroffer. CEB’s data shows that 50% of employees who accept a counteroffer leave within 12 months. “It’s almost like when you’re in a relationship and you’ve decided⁸ you want to break up, but your partner does something that makes you stick around a little longer,” Kropp says. “Employees who accept a counteroffer are most likely going to quit at some point very soon.”

研究人员都支持这种先发制人的干预，比眼巴巴看着员工获得工作机会后提出还价更奏效。CEB的研究数据显示，50%接受了还价的员工会在一年内离职。“这就很像当你处于一段感情之中，你已经决定要分手了，但是你的另一半做了一点努力把你留在身边久一点而已。”Kropp说道。“接受了还价待遇的员工就是那些很快会离职的员工。”