The subtle transparency of turn-over rate

Objective reliability in a subjective marketplace

Reflecting on the successes and failures of my early professional career, I feel compelled to address a few basic concepts that I too often see over-looked today. It ties in with my proudest accomplishment and arguably the most consistently telling of any measure of leadership.

I've found that through data breakdown and statistical analysis, we can piece together enough to create at least a decent picture of what's really going on. But sometimes it seems that all I'm left with is a pile of semi-digested data chunks that never seem absolute in their ability to accurately forecast anything.

Statistics are like people; if you torture them long enough, they'll tell you anything.  

It may be true that numbers can be mixed and matched to coorelate with any pre-determined outcome, but there is one measurement of managerial success that is as transparent as they come...over any period of time always revealing the truth: employee turn-over rate.

Managers will quickly figure out how they're being ‘graded’ and align behavior to get a better score.  Positive results are praised, and if maintained maybe it gets inspected for scalability potential – i.e.  can the results can be reproduced on a broader scale for increased profits and larger gains?  Nothing new.  Nothing exciting.  

For me the root of a team’s struggles has always been very clear and obvious.  But first this vision is transcribed into words, ideas are organized, goals are presented, then tracked and measured over time.  The team is the first to notice improvement, as the environment noticeably feels 'lighter'. And for the external observers, an objective measure on paper will validate the quality of the work.(e.g. customer count, sales volume, market share, etc.).

However the team’s success was never really in question; in fact its attainment was as certain as anything.  Watching this attitude echoed across a 15-20 employee team is an incredible feeling for a manager or leader to experience.  Not a cocky mis-guided confidence; simply an assertive, quiet certainty of the quality of one's own work.  We all just knew our way was going to work.  I would imagine that in an industry setting marred by its embarrassingly high rate of employee discontentment, rarely producing a genuinenly positive workplace energy, it must be incredibly refreshing simply to be a part of this team.  So who would want to leave?

I always found the most difficult part of my job to be articulating internal success to a larger audience.  Because how can we even talk specifics when a team is in constant flux just to keep a position filled – constantly hiring the wrong people, mis-interpreting the development of the good ones, and diverting half one’s attention at any given time to training?  We can become so pre-occupied trying to replicate a successful team’s operational habits that we completely miss the fact that these habits are merely the result of the successful maintenance of a positive work environment – one that isn’t constantly losing talent and destroying itself from the inside out. 

Employee turn-over rate: over any significant period of time, there is virtually no way to ‘cheat’ this number or mis-represent it any way.  It is what it is.  If a positive work field has been created, the team becomes empowered, and the employees stay.  If we are constantly fighting and clawing to achieve little goals, unimportant unto themselves, there might be brief, short-lived metric obtainment, but this model can not be maintained; ultimately the strain will lead to disillusionment and team dismantlement.  Thus the cycle repeats.                   

So this takes me back to the original idea (and in my industry the reason there is no correlation between a successful staff pharmacist and a successful manager).  If you want to know the effect a leader has had on a team, you need look no further than the employees themselves.  It is that simple.  This will tell you everything you need to know about sustainability or scaleability.  We don’t even need to look at the business break-down or P & L sheets.  There is absolutely no way to fake turn-over rate over a significant length of time.  The team leader herself may be quietly in the midst of her most difficult health battle; however if there exists a genuine interest in the work and an honest consideration for employee well-being, it will shine through the team and the results will be self-evident. 

Unfortunately, when management is requesting a response to fit with current computer “efficiency” expertise programs, the short and frustrated response, “I don’t know, talk to my employees; we just knew”, isn’t well received :-) 

This “family” feeling of employees- their loyalty to one another and the team as a whole - is incalculable but described by nearly every legitimately successful team or company. Employees who feel cared for, can not help but reflect this onto the customer, and the customer can not help but notice. It creates an environment of warmth that will inevitably lead to customer retention and business growth. 

Ok, this unintentionally overlaps nicely with the thoughts of my previous post so I will summarize and conclude: 

 Employee turn-over rate will disclose the true value of a leader; if you are leading a team to perform work that you yourself are not truly passionate towards, there is absolutely no chance of procuring long-term success.