| 1470 Total Employee | $6.5K Avg. Monthly Income (Retention) | 16% Attrition Rate | 84% Retention Rate | $4.8K Avg. Monthly Income (Attrition) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
This report presents a comprehensive analysis of employee attrition using the HR Employee Attrition dataset comprising 1,470 employees. Using SQL for data querying and Excel for visualization, the analysis identifies key factors driving employee turnover. The organization recorded a 16% attrition rate with 237 employees leaving and 1,233 retained. Average monthly income for attrited employees was $4.8K compared to $6.5K for retained employees. Key findings reveal that early tenure employees, R&D department staff, overtime workers and low-income earners are most at risk of leaving. Recommendations focus on compensation review, career development and employee engagement strategies to reduce turnover.
Employee attrition remains a critical challenge for organizations, leading to increased recruitment costs, loss of institutional knowledge and reduced productivity. This analysis seeks to identify the key factors that contribute to employee attrition and provide actionable recommendations on how organizations can reduce turnover and improve retention through data-driven decision making.
The HR Employee Attrition dataset is a single CSV file containing employee information across 1,470 records and 35 variables. The dataset captures a wide range of employee attributes including demographic information, compensation metrics, job satisfaction, performance ratings, tenure and attrition status. Each row represents a unique employee identified by a unique Employee ID. The data was sourced from Kaggle website (Online) and was used to analyze the key factors influencing employee turnover and retention within an organization.
| Variable | Type | Description | Used in Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employee_ID | INT | Unique identifier assigned to each employee | No |
| Age | INT | Age of the Employee in years | Yes |
| Gender | Varchar | Biological sex of the employee (Male and Female) | Yes |
| Marital Status | Varchar | Marital status of the employee (Married, Single or Divorced) | Yes |
| Education | INT | Education level of the employee on a scale of 1-5 | Yes |
| Education Field | Varchar | Field of study of the employee (e.g., Life Sciences, Medical, Marketing) | No |
| Num. Of Companies Worked | INT | Total number of companies the employee has worked at prior to current organization | No |
| Over 18 | Varchar | Indicates whether the employee is above 18 years of age (Yes or No) | No |
| Total Working Year | INT | Total number of years the employee has been working professionally | No |
| Training Time Last Year | INT | Number of training sessions attended by the employee in the previous year | No |
| Year At Company | INT | Number of years the employee has been with the current organization | No |
| Years In Current Role | Number of years the employee has been in their current job role | No | |
| Year Since Last Promotion | Promotion Number of years since the employee last received a promotion | Yes | |
| Year With Current Manager | Number of years the employee has worked under their current manager | No | |
| Attrition | Indicates whether the employee left the organization (Yes) or stayed (No) | Yes | |
| Business Travel | Frequency of business travel (Non-Travel, Travel Rarely or Travel Frequently) | No | |
| Daily Rate | Daily compensation rate of the employee in dollars | No | |
| Department | Department the employee belongs to (Sales, R&D or Human Resources) | Yes | |
| Distance | Distance from the employee's home to the workplace (Near, Far or Very Far) | Yes | |
| Employee Count | Total count of employees (constant value used for aggregation purposes) | No | |
| Environment Satisfaction | Employee's satisfaction with the work environment on a scale of 1-4 (Low, Medium, High, Very High) | No | |
| Hourly Rate | Hourly compensation rate of the employee | No | |
| Job Involvement | Level of employee involvement in their job on a scale of 1-4 (Low, Medium, High, Very High) | No | |
| Job Level | Seniority level of the employee within the organization on a scale of 1-5 | Yes | |
| Job Role | Specific job title or role of the employee (e.g. Sales Executive, Research Scientist) | Yes | |
| Job Satisfaction | Employee's satisfaction with their job on a scale of 1-4 | Yes | |
| Monthly Income | Total monthly salary of the employee in dollars | Yes | |
| Monthly Rate | Monthly compensation rate used for payroll calculations | No | |
| Over Time | Indicates whether the employee works overtime (Yes or No) | Yes | |
| Percent Salary Hike | Percentage increase in salary received by the employee during last appraisal | No | |
| Performance Rate | Performance rating of the employee (1-4) | Yes | |
| Relationship Satisfaction | Employee's satisfaction with workplace relationships on a scale of 1-4 | Yes | |
| Standard Hour | Standard number of working hours per day (constant value for all employees) | No | |
| Stock Option Level | Level of stock options granted to the employee on a scale of 0-3 | No | |
| Work life Balance | Employee's rating of their work-life balance on a scale of 1-4 (Bad, Good, Better, Best) | Yes |
| Issue | Volume | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| Missing Value | 0% | No decision |
| Inconsistent format | All Text Column | Standardize all text value |
A five-stage pipeline using SQL and Excel was adopted to ensures reproducibility and separation of raw from analytical data.
| Stage | Tool | Output | Key Decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ingestion | MYSQL | 1470 | Load CSV file into SQL table created in database for analysis |
| Exploration | MYSQL | Null count and inconsistence format | 0% null found and many inconsistences format was found like text value not standardize |
| Cleaning & Transformation | MYSQL | HR_Employee clean (1470 rows) + 1 new columns added | Standardize text value and replace nulls. Extracted Age Group from Age Column |
| Analysis | MYSQL | 12 Descriptive questions answered | All Analysis was done in SQL |
| Visualization | Excel | Dashboard | Display insights through charts and graphs |
1. Overall Attrition Overview
Out of 1,470 employees, 237 left while 1,233 were retained. Although the 16% attrition rate appears relatively low, the 237 exits still represent a meaningful group worth analyzing to understand potential retention issues.
Implication: Proactive retention strategies should be implemented before turnover escalates and recruitment costs increase.
2. Attrition by Gender vs Age Group
Employees aged 28-37 years recorded the highest attrition with 389 males and 249 females in that group. Male employees are more likely to leave than females, often seeking better opportunities or faster career growth.