Wouldn’t you like to know which employees are quitting before they even make the decision? Google’s HR department thinks it can figure that out.

The company’s working on a formula that can help them predict who’s most likely to resign.

The formula, which is still being tested and kept secret, uses data from performance reviews, surveys and pay and performance histories to identify employees who are likely to quit in the near future, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Presumably, they’ll take what they find and look for ways to convince those employees to stay.

Google’s had some retention issues lately, as several top employees have left the company. But is designing an equation to identify potential quitters the answer, or is it a needlessly complicated technical solution for an age-old personnel problem?

Some folks think it’s the latter. “They need to come up with ways to keep people engaged,” career consultant Valerie Frederickson was quoted as saying in the WSJ article. “If Google was doing this enough, they wouldn’t be losing all these people.”

Sounds like the general advice every company needs to follow.

Tags: Google, resignations