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O P I N I O N
If you want to run a successful firm, there are employees you just have to keep. But in other instances, turnover can be a good thing. Zero percent turnover (sometimes)
E mployees are our lifeblood in this business. Without our people we would not be able to serve our clients and deliver on projects. In today’s tight labor market, especially in rural areas, recruiting top talent is expensive, redirecting time and resources away from projects and firm strategies. In high-intellectual industries like ours, employee turnover rates higher than 10 percent are brutal. When employees leave, they take their knowledge, their license, their planned billable hours, and client relationships with them. However, turnover is not always bad. It is important for a firm to acquire new ideas and experience through hiring new employees.
Kara Clower
A firm expects turnover in positions like engineers-in-training, who are intent on acquiring as much experience as possible, and administrative staff, who desire growth and promotion faster than the firm can support. Our best option is to plan employee turnover in the lower-level, higher supply positions and with the lower performing employees, and to strategically retain higher- level, lower supply licensed individuals and high- performance employees. Creating a strategic employee turnover and retention plan, which identifies the employees and the positions you want to (must) keep and those you do not, can reduce unexpected turnover
and unnecessary recruitment costs, positively impacting the bottom line. To begin creating a turnover and retention plan, the firm must have a current strategic plan. This plan should identify the firm’s service regions, clients the firm will serve, and services the firm will provide. If you are a director of a market sector or department and your firm does not have a strategic plan, draft one for your own department. There are a lot of resources on the web on how to write a strategic plan. Once you know the firm’s (or department’s) target
See KARA CLOWER, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER April 29, 2019, ISSUE 1294
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