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Attrition – Turnover – Retention. Yeah, yeah, I know the difference. But today, we need to talk about something else—so listen up.
Can someone explain where HR got its so-called "ideal turnover rate" from?
Here's the real issue: Every time I ask HR about turnover, there are no answers. Not real ones, anyway. Basic questions like:
Is the turnover negative or positive? Healthy or unhealthy?
Who is leaving? Men, women, different age groups, tenure levels, performance levels, departments?
Are they full-time, part-time, hybrid workers? How far do they live from work?
What percentage leaves for which reasons?
And yet, turnover data in most organizations is like the infamous succession plan—everyone talks about it, but no one’s actually seen one in action. I've probably sat through over a hundred meetings about succession planning, but never seen a real one. Turnover data? Same story. Endless meetings, no actual details to drive decisions. Of course you cannot solve the turnover rate problem when we swept everything under the carpet in the past two decades! Don’t be surprised by tripping over the carpet you kept sweeping everything under. It’s time to look!
Here’s the thing: If you lump everyone into one big bucket, you don’t actually know what’s happening—or if you even have a problem. If low performers are leaving, that’s good turnover. No action needed—other than figuring out why they underperformed in the first place so you can prevent that cycle.
I once watched a CHRO obsess over reducing turnover from 21% to 19%. When I asked where these leavers were coming from—silence. When I asked how she landed on 19%—benchmarking reports. Her grand solution? A 67-slide PowerPoint on talent development to "retain people." I wanted to die listening to her. She was building an annual strategy around a number she didn’t understand. Held hostage by a two-digit figure. Fascinating.
Here’s the reality: Benchmarking is not how you determine an ideal turnover rate. Every organization has different variables affecting those numbers. So is there such a thing as an ideal turnover rate? Yes—but only if it’s based on your own internal data. If people aren’t leaving because of you—even if turnover is 40%—that’s your ideal rate.
Turnover isn’t the problem. The problem is when you don’t have a structure that allows you to rehire, onboard, and integrate people quickly and effectively. The problem is when you fail to maximize employees' skills, ideas, and performance while they’re with you—whether that’s six years or six months.
People say recruitment costs are too high. You know what’s costing companies more? The failure to get the best out of people while they’re here. The money isn’t in retention—it’s in our ability to harness talent from day one. Recruitment only feels expensive because we have no clue what to do with talent once we have it.
What if we flipped the script? What if turnover wasn’t a crisis but an opportunity?
Someone stayed six months but had an idea that transformed our marketing, making us more money.
A three-month employee redesigned workflows that made 28 people more productive, saving time and resources.
A Gen Z quit after a week but flagged inefficiencies in our onboarding process that, if fixed, could streamline hiring and improve retention.
See how wrong we’ve been? This is why I keep saying: Stop listening to conventional wisdom. Just because everyone else has lost their common sense doesn’t mean you have to.
Ditch the outdated KPIs and ideologies that are dragging your organization down. Odds are, you’re pouring resources into the wrong things because you don’t have the right information.
Someone told me the other day that “all turnover is bad because high performers leave and low performers stay.” Sounds great for TikTok University, but where’s the data? We don’t know. Because we haven’t bothered to look.
PS: Employees say that the management just talks about turnover but don’t really care. Well, I don’t disagree because when we don’t know every single details about the problem we are trying to solve it means we don’t actually care about it.
If you need help with bringing order to HR’s chaos let us know. HR doesn’t have to be that difficult.
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