Clinical Research companies continue to battle exceptionally high turnover.

Turnover in the U.S. for clinical monitoring jobs (the function that monitors participants’ health during a clinical trial) at CROs remained high at 25% in 2016, almost the identical to the previous year’s reported 25.1% (2015) according to the 2017 CRO Hot Topics Survey on Turnover, conducted by HR+Survey Solutions, a specialty compensation consulting and research firm. What is hidden behind these numbers, are cases where individual companies are experiencing turnover that is over 50%. This is significantly higher than estimates of overall U.S. turnover of 17.8%.

For countries outside the U.S., turnover in clinical monitoring increased to 22% in 2016 from the previous year’s turnover of 16.4%.

U.S. overall average turnover at CROs increased slightly to 22% in 2016 from 20.1% in 2015 (all positions at the CROs). Outside the U.S., the overall turnover rate increased to 19% in 2016 from the previous year’s level of 17%.

According to Judy Canavan, managing partner, HR+Survey Solutions and the author of the study, CROs have yet to effectively address this issue. She said, “We encourage companies to look to other industries for creative approaches for controlling turnover; clearly the CRO industry has not solved this issue.”

Canavan continued, “Turnover is very expensive. It is worth the investment to obtain guidance to develop and implement solutions that reduce turnover.”

The CRO Hot Topics Survey on Turnover was conducted by HR+Survey Solutions in 2017. A total of 21 public and private CROs with fewer than 500 to more than 12,000 employees participated in the niche study. It was conducted as an adjunct to the annual CRO Industry Global Compensation and Turnover Survey, a comprehensive survey of compensation, benefits and perquisites for CRO specific jobs in over 55 countries.