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As the situation plays out I am about to leave my current job, I am not completely content with the situation but none the less it was expected (Contract funding ran out, I was not fired for those who were wondering). The situation reminded me of a few articles I read a while back and would like to share with you. I will also show you that the standard turnover model is the worst possible model any company could chose, yet everyone still does it.

This first article by Alex Papadimoulis, explains that all of your good employees will leave after a couple years because they have hit the apex of the benefits the company can give them. i.e. after a few years the employee gains less from the company, in areas as experience and improved skills. So the ambitious employees, the best employees, leave after a couple years to peruse other options to improve their skills. Now good companies can extend the duration good employees stay in the company but it is inevitable that they will leave eventually.

This second article on The Cost of Employee Turnover, explains the cost of the entire process of turning over an employee. Now, I do not suggest reading this entire article unless you have a reason to. The point is that the employer incurs a lot of costs that most employers do not even notice.

Note: Based on the data from the Cost of Employee Turnover article, for a $50,000 employee turnover can cost over $75,000.

The standard turnover process:

1. Employee states he is leaving the company
2. If the company is good then they place an ad for a new hire before the current one leaves.
3. The employer goes through the hiring process
4. New employee enters the company
5. New employee is trained
6. A lot of work, experience and knowledge that was completed by the original employee is lost in translation.
7. After two months or so the new employee starts producing valuable work.

Now that the standard process is laid out it is easy to see all the problems. First there is usually a significant time between when an employee leaves and a new employee is hired. Also, all the mistakes made by the first employee will only be repeated by the new one.

Solution:

The ideal solution that Alex stated in his article, is one where the leaving employee trains the new employee. True, there are a number of problems that can occur with this, but they are less significant then the benefits.

Benefits:

• No time between leaving and new hire
• No time sacrificed from coworkers to train – Note: many employers do not want to have the leaving employee train because they will be paying for two people to do the same job. When what ends up happening is the employer pays for 2 people to do no job at all, if they go with the traditional method.
• Drastically reduce the loss in experience and knowledge incurred by a leaving employee.
• Digital Permissions – the leaving employee will be able to contact all the people responsible for setting up permissions, on databases and so on.
• Training Management – in a position such as mine, when I leave I will spend upwards of 20 hrs creating documentation and training coworkers and managers how my job is done, then they go and train the new employee. It is fairly clear, how this will virtually be eliminated when the training is done by the leaving employee.

If my idea is so great why does it not normally happen

The reason is because it is easier to do it the way it has been done forever. And there is minimal risk involved, not to mention few have ever analyzed the actual cost incurred from employee turnover.

Final piece of advice

Think out of the box, I know you hear this a lot and you probably believe you do, but you don’t. if you are not upsetting people with your different ideas then you are not thinking out of the box.

What do you think? Does the company that you work for have the leaving employee train, or do they follow the traditional model?