Attrition Study 2019

2019 Field Service Attrition Study

Thank you for your interest and willingness to take part in this study!  This will be our second year of running the attrition study and we hope to grow our understanding as we gather this information over multiple periods of time.

We believe that as we collectively look at the information related to field attrition we will gain pertinent insights to serve our missionaries more effectively.  The more organizations that take part the better we will be able to understand trends across the North American Great Commission Community.

We understand that this will require different levels of additional work and time to participate.  We are grateful for your willingness to add this to your busy schedules and know that the end results will be a helpful resource to those that participate and for the broader missions community.

As you read this information and consider its implications for you and your organization please do not hesitate to reach out to us.  Michael VanHuis will be managing this project for us and is available to set up a meeting with you to discuss the study and ways you can implement it within your organization.  Just email research@missionexus.org with any questions or to set up a meeting.

Within the participating organizations, there is a substantial difference in how attrition data is collected, terminology that is used, and organizational structure.  We have sought to build a study that takes this in to account.  We have worked to make the language neutral and usable as possible across organizations by interacting with a number of personnel departments in the development of this piece that was built on a foundation provided by our friends at Pioneers.

This study will take place from January 1st to December 31st, 2019.  You can either log information on a monthly basis as you process those leaving field service, or you can record everything at one time at the end of the year.  All data will be due by January 31st, 2020.

There are three perspectives to this study:

1. The Member that is leaving
2. The Home Office Staff
3. The Field Leadership

Some organizations only collect data from the member and one leadership source in the organization rather than both field and home.  If that is your situation then in the Excel SS, just log the organization perspective on either the home office or field tabs depending on where that perspective is most represented.  When we do the final analysis we will report accordingly.

Terminology can also vary from organization to organization.  We have attempted to provide a broad selection of categories and explanations when necessary to get as close as possible to representing ideas and reasons that should account for almost all situations.  We realize this is not perfect and in some cases, you will need to either leave a field blank or pick the reason codes that are as close as possible.

We also know there are some organizations that have an extremely robust data collection system and some that have never tracked attrition data at all, and of course, some that lay somewhere along that spectrum.  In light of this, we are providing a complete tracking tool if you don’t have anything or want to improve your current system.

For those with a robust method for gathering attrition data within your organization, you can simply utilize the simplified spreadsheet (Attrition Study MN Questions Only) to log your information over the course of 2019.

The complete tool includes:

1. Fillable PDF surveys for the member, home office leadership, and field leadership.
   1. You could also utilize these documents to create online forms through Survey Monkey, or Google Forms for example.
2. Excel SS to log answers from the pdf surveys or online survey tools.  (Fields in blue are confidential data for organizations only and do not need to be submitted at year end.) (Attrition Study Full Final.xlsx)
   1. Excel SS has three tabs:  Member, Home Office and Field Leadership
   2. Please make a copy of the document and eliminate the organization only fields in blue before submitting.

Downloads:
Member PDF
Home Office PDF
Field Leader PDF
Attrition Study Full Final (Excel SS)

The simplified spreadsheet: (For organizations with an established system)

1. Excel SS to log answers after you have collected information in your own system. (Attrition Study MN Questions Only.xlsx)
   1. All organization only fields have been removed.
   2. Excel SS has three tabs:  Member, Home Office and Field Leadership

Download:
Attrition Study MN Questions Only (Excel SS)

Each spreadsheet has drop-down menus in the boxes, just click on the box and the menu will appear.  The tab with these codes is hidden in the document.  Please do not edit or change any codes just use the one that most closely answers the question for each situation.

Lastly, we have included an excel spreadsheet that collects information about your organization (Organization SS.xlsx).  Please submit this spreadsheet with the other documents in January 2020.

Download:
Organization SS (Excel SS)

Please email confirmation of your participation, and point person, as soon as possible and direct any questions to research@missionexus.org. 

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