Yes, you are. Obviously you are not doing it on purpose. In every organization, there are activities which, if stopped, will immediately reduce your turnover. Your organization has strategies and policies which make your employee turnover, chronically open positions and skills gap worse - not better. The majority of the time, management is not even aware of what is happening or does not fully understand the predictable end result.
For instance, management will tell me about their number one recruiting pool and how it “brings them a lot of people”. However, when I analyze their turnover it becomes evident that few of the people hired from that pool stay long. As you dive deeper, you find the majority of candidates from that pool do not meet the basic criteria of what management is looking for. In the short term, management is getting what they want – people. But, in the long term they are feeding the monster.
As we analyze further, we always find another recruiting pool which has much better long term results. The candidates fit the criteria better and therefore are a better fit for the organizational goals.
Recalibrate your mindset from “getting people” to “keeping people”
When you do recalibrate you will end up with a long term solution. In the short term, you will have some issues which will resolve themselves in the long term. These issues can be managed and minimized by the process you choose to make the change.
This new mindset will itself help stop feeding the monster. The monster wants you to think in the short term. He wants you to think “it will get better someday”. The problem is someday never happens. It will only happen when you change the mindset. I have seen it happen many times. Organizations have to go through the process. But, once they get to the other side, their turnover is cut drastically and they are spending a lot less time recruiting. They never want to go back to the old mindset.
What would you rather do? Continue to constantly hire new people or keep the ones you have?
