Monday, February 2, 2009

Attrition-Fear It? Loathe It? Love It?

My job deals with shift bids this time of year. Shift bids are just what they sound like bidding on shifts based on performance from the prior year. As you can imagine there are a number of tenured employees that have low morale after completing these. Since low morale becomes an issue increased attrition can occur. Losing good people can be tough for a department or organization to overcome depending on the percentage of attrition that actually occurs.

With this in mind I recently had a leader inform me that attrition from this shift bid is ok because this actually becomes an opportunity for the department to bring in new talent. I wonder though how attrition is viewed? Do you view it like the leader above almost as a necessary evil to bring in new talent? Do you loathe or fear it because low staff may mean low production? I'm curious about what leaders think on this issue.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Chris,
    One of the first things that comes to mind when we lose talent, is the cost to replace that talent. It seems most replacements are interns. Interns start at a lower salary for the first year, then slowly accelerate for the duration of the program. Interns usually have approximately two years of heavy training, which equates to two years that efforts will have to be spread out among the people that are still in the office. Another factor to be considered is the lost knowlegde. I noticed that when I came on board, everything I learned was from the people I worked with. There were no manuals, no instructions, no means of attempting to figure it out myself. Therefore, everything I learned, I documented and made SOPs for. Now, as we get ready to bring on two new interns, we can at least provide them with something tangible until they learn what they need to learn. As for attrition as a whole, I lean toward the love it because when all is said and done, new talent, fresh minds and new perspectives are always good in an organization. Whether we like it or not, things are constantly changing and it's best to accept change and embrace it for the best of everyone's interests.

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