With attrition rates sky rocketing at more than 10% in top 3 industries and increasing alarmingly every year, it has become crucial for organisations to work towards retaining their employees by keeping them engaged and looking after their needs along with keeping the organisational goal in mind. According to the Work Institute and the 2018 Retention Report companies are expected to spend $680bn in turnover costs by 2020. They also estimated the top 50 reasons why workers plan to abandon their jobs. Career growth and work-life balance or lack of them were the most often cited factors, such as benefits and incentives, well-being and management behaviour. Artificial intelligence in recent times has taken ‘understanding employees’ to a different horizon. With the help of Big Data Analysis, Machine leaning etc, bots have become powerful enough to measure and understand trends and accordingly predict the decisions that a human might take.
Converging big data and machine learning with human touch is the key to the effective use of AI for retention and engagement. It is imperative that the company and HR understands the balance between aiding technology to help them and the human nuances of working with people. As employees are developing in their jobs and careers, predictors can be looked at. These predictors or indicators might tell us if the employee is planning to leave or if he is unhappy. This study aims to understand and find out the role of artificial intelligence in employee engagement and as a result of that; employee retention. There is a rich opportunity to explore this arena and a variety of methods under AI to unravel these kinds of issues.