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Is employee 'churn' an unavoidable fact of life?
People used to join a company and 40 years later leave with a gold watch and a pension. Now interviewees say "I might stay with you for a couple of years". Should we give up trying to retain employees and accept that the churn might bring unexpected value (there will be good people leaving other companies, looking for work)?
67 months ago
2 answers
I don't think we can say people staying or leaving is good or bad - it depends right?
I know many organisations where people stay for a long time, but they stay because its comfortable, it never occurred to them to look elsewhere, and they have built up good pension rights etc. The problem is they are too comfortable, too narrow in their perspectives, not performing well enough and not comfortable changing. The business is staying afloat purely because of momentum, but it won't last.
For more interesting companies, for people to stay, companies have to be offering something. In the old days it was continuity of employment. Now companies will quite happily lay off large numbers of people, so why should employees offer 'loyalty' if the company won't?
The problem is, quite often the people who will find it easiest to get another job are your better performers.
You need a certain level of churn to refresh the business, but it depends where, who and why they are going. I think by the time people get to thinking of leaving, it's too late. Retention starts much earlier, when you give people interesting work, manage them well and help them grow.
Some of the best companies I've known help people when they want to leave, stay in touch, and try to lure them back again later in their career if they are still good.
67 months ago
Churn is absolutely a fact of life. Depending on factors like country and age may even take on the form of an initiation ritual, if you will. To illustrate: I notice that in India a graduate hire will rotate IT related jobs after usually 2 years, and will rotate quite easily 3 times before settling for a longer period. (disclaimer: this is a personal observation - not statistically proven). In large Indian metropolitan areas you often see busses of employees drive towards work (a company provided service). On their way to work they see a number of billboards offering services to aid job hopping.
Undoubtedly factors like economic growth and the wide availability of jobs make this possible. And it's not only a pitty to get rid of some good employees, you will also loose some bad ones on the way. And as you say, pick up some good ones, too (and bad, ones... again).
Curious to see how this trend will develop as another economic downturn will undoubtedly come at some point.
67 months ago
