I feel like I need to take just a second here and clarify a couple things about BSN (BlueShirt Nation). The presentation notes that I published under breaking it down for internal communicators for the conference “Social Media for Internal Communication” have been referenced a few places out on the interweb. Awesome, but; “Best Buy claims their social network reduces turn over” and “How an internal social network can dramatically reduce turnover ” worry me. These posts present a correlation as causal. Ruh roh.
Here's what the presentation said: “In a company with a 60% turnover rate, the members of BSN turnover at a rate of 8.5%.” What that means is the members of the site turn over at a rate lower than the company average. Why? Not sure why. Could be lots of things. There are many variables. The presentation also states, “We are getting the most engaged employees on the site and talking about how to make the company better.” That means that we think that employees who are engaged (dig their jobs or at least dig Best Buy) are more likely to be members of BSN than those who aren't engaged. Participation in the site is voluntary so the people who show up do it because they want to.
There are many other factors that need to be examined to really parse the 8.5% statistic. Like who are they, what do they do, how long have they been employed, and on and on. Jumping to the conclusion that BSN or any corporate social network reduces turnover, while I'd love to make that claim, is a dangerous mistake.
/clarification
