Attrition Can Be a Positive Thing
Two statistics are often used to demonstrate the state of an organisation’s culture: engagement and attrition.
Engagement measures how much people care about their jobs, the interactions with their teammates, how good the manager is at motivating them, their goals and what the organisation aspires to achieve. If it’s below 80%, then you need to redefine it and create new foundations on which employees can build a better future. Anything above 80% requires regular seeding, feeding and watering to ensure that it stays there! Often the latter is just as hard as the former.
Attrition on the other hand is a little more black and white and goes something like this: high attrition = bad; low attrition = good. Yet, this metric is often set against the cost to hire rather than the quality of people that organisation seeks to retain.
The Great Resignation will likely test attrition rates into 2022 and beyond and senior managers have a choice to make. A choice that will be made easier if they understand the target culture that they’re seeking to implement.
This is important, as there are some people that simply won’t fit the future state. In either their attitude, commitment, behaviour or willingness to step outside their comfort zone to contribute to the team. And that’s ok. Not everyone can fit the culture all of the time. This is why engagement scores, even within the best working cultures, are never 100% all of the time.
People that don’t fit the target culture should be sent on their way with the organisation's blessing and people recruited in their place that share the same values and who are looking for opportunities to stretch themselves in pursuit of team excellence. Or else you seek to find them another internal opportunity that is better suited to their skills.
Interestingly, and speaking from experience when I’ve done this, there is actually an increase in the engagement and happiness of other staff (if it’s handled in the right way, of course). If you’ve ever worked with anyone who doesn’t have a passion for what they do, you know how incredibly draining it can be for all and whilst you don’t wish them ill in any way, you just want them to find something that they can positively contribute to.
Now I know what you’re thinking here (particularly if you work for a government organisation), ‘We can’t do that where we work’. Except you can. This is just a story that you’re telling yourself that may also include ‘It’s really hard to manage people out’.
The hardest part of the process is managers having the courage to motivate, inspire, then performance manage someone until they recognise that this may not be the place for them. No manager wants to do this, which is often why it ends up in the ‘we can’t do it’ or ‘it’s too hard’ basket.
Of course, a manager’s other role here is to have some self-awareness and ensure that they are not the root cause of the performance issues and that they’re not contributing to the attrition! After all, people don’t just leave jobs, they leave managers.
There’s no surer sign of this than when high potential employees leave. In some instances, there simply may be no place for them to go. That is to say, they have achieved their potential in their current role and the organisation has nothing else to offer them.
In these cases, you need to let them fly, rather than making them unhappy by clipping their wings. More money and perks may provide a short-term lift, but longer term they will only be happy with greater opportunity. If you can’t provide that, let them go. This is a good example of positive attrition.
Negative attrition occurs when these people leave without having fulfilled their potential or else aren’t prepared to take up opportunities within the organisation as a result of managerial or cultural issues. This is the attrition that organisations need to monitor and address and I don’t just mean by having a good exit interview process!
If you haven’t taken steps to build a great team culture and/or don’t have managers who understand their role is to motivate, inspire and role model what leadership looks like, then you can expect a high negative attrition rate. You need to take steps to avoid this.
Conventional hiring wisdom and endless HR statistics say that attrition is a bad thing and that a high number is a cause for concern. However, if, having taken the time to define your desired culture and outline the strategy for the year, it’s highly likely that you may need to lose a few people to gain others who can help you to be the organisation that you strive to be. And that’s a positive thing.
