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Managerial Attention, Attrition, and Employee Productivity

Last registered on June 10, 2019
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Managerial Attention, Attrition, and Employee Productivity
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004280
Initial registration date
June 05, 2019

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
June 10, 2019, 9:54 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
China
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Hugh Xiaolong Wu
Affiliation
Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Shannon X. Liu
PI Affiliation
University of Toronto Rotman School of Management
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-03-01
End date
2019-12-31
Keywords
Firms & Productivity, Labor
Additional Keywords
managers, management practices, employee productivity, human resource
JEL code(s)
J0, L2, M1, M5
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We run a field experiment to study the impacts of managerial attention on employee attrition, productivity and well-being. We also study how managerial attention, as scarce resources, should be allocated among workers. Our studied firm, a network of 157 company-owned spa stores in China, has an annual turnover rate of 110%. This poses huge costs for the company. In addition, the productivity of workers is heavily influenced by their emotions. Thus, the strategic provision of managerial attention could be effective in reducing employee turnovers, or improving employee well-being and productivity at workplace.

We assign stores into two treatment groups and one control group. In both treatment groups, managers are provided a list of employee names every week, and need to have a private conversation with the listed employees. Each conversation has a standardized format, and managers received training prior to the experiment.

Our first treatment, labelled as "random allocation", is to provide managerial attention to random employees. Lists of employees are generated through random numbers, and the order of attention allocation is uncorrelated to any employee characteristics. Our second treatment, labelled as "target allocation", is to focus on employees with more negative emotions and therefore higher probabilities of attrition. We generate the list of employee names through high-frequency employee satisfaction surveys' scores.

The field experiment starts on April 1st, 2019 and lasts 6 months.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Liu, Shannon X. and Hugh Xiaolong Wu. 2019. "Managerial Attention, Attrition, and Employee Productivity." AEA RCT Registry. June 10. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4280-1.0
Former Citation
Liu, Shannon X. and Hugh Xiaolong Wu. 2019. "Managerial Attention, Attrition, and Employee Productivity." AEA RCT Registry. June 10. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/4280/history/47840
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2019-04-01
Intervention End Date
2019-09-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Personnel Turnover
Employee productivity (sales, repeated customer share, compensation, attendance, etc.)
Store-level performances (e.g. revenues, customer visits)
Employee well-being
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We run a field experiment to study the impacts of managerial attention on employee attrition, productivity and well-being. We also study how managerial attention, as scarce resources, should be allocated among workers. Our studied firm, a network of 157 company-owned spa stores in China, has an annual turnover rate of 110%. This poses huge costs for the company. In addition, the productivity of workers is heavily influenced by their emotions. Thus, the strategic provision of managerial attention could be effective in reducing employee turnovers, or improving employee well-being and productivity at workplace.

We assign stores into two treatment groups and one control group. In both treatment groups, managers are provided a list of employee names every week, and need to have a private conversation with the listed employees. Each conversation has a standardized format, and managers received training prior to the experiment.

Our first treatment, labelled as "random allocation", is to provide managerial attention to random employees. Lists of employees are generated through random numbers, and the order of attention allocation is uncorrelated to any employee characteristics. Our second treatment, labelled as "target allocation", is to focus on employees with more negative emotions and therefore higher probabilities of attrition. We generate the list of employee names through high-frequency employee satisfaction surveys' scores.

The field experiment starts on April 1st, 2019 and lasts 6 months.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer: We select employees into treatments or control group by store using stratified randomization method. In addition to average attrition rate (store-level), we stratify on store sales and size, since these characteristics are correlated with turnovers, productivity and well-being.
Randomization Unit
Store
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
157 stores
Sample size: planned number of observations
157
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
52-53 in each treatment group
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Stanford IRB
IRB Approval Date
2019-04-16
IRB Approval Number
49677
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials