"I Quit" : The Role of Schedule Volatility in Employee Turnover

We examine how employer-driven volatility in workers' schedules impacts their decision to voluntarily leave their job. Using time-stamped work log data of home health nurses, we construct and study a novel measure of schedule volatility. This measure may be endogenous to the worker's decision to quit. Hence, we instrument for schedule volatility using time off taken by coworkers. We find that higher levels of schedule volatility substantially increase workers' likelihood of quitting. Through policy simulations, we illustrate how schedule volatility, and employee turnover, could be mitigated. We conclude by discussing the generalizability of our results to other industries