THE

100

PRINCIPLES OF HIRING ACCURACY

PRINCIPLE

#37
GOT TURNOVER? DON'T KEEP POURING. FIX THE LEAK!
Hiring for a high turnover role is like pouring water into a leaking bucket. Quit spending ALL your resources over-pouring. Fix the leak! (Yes, even if it requires new budget!)

GOT TURNOVER? DON'T KEEP POURING. FIX THE LEAK!

Imagine if your job was to pour water into a leaking bucket.

Would you rather invest ALL your resources pouring faster or a TINY portion of those resources fixing the leak?

Of course, you'd fix the leak.

We all get this when it comes to bucket-filling, but forget it when it comes to hiring and turnover.

To be blunt, this is often leadership's fault.

We've known many a HR or Business Unit leader who went to leadership seeking budget for tackling turnover, only to be rejected.

The conversation went something like this:

HR/BU LEADER: Can we have $ to fix a hole in this bucket we keep pouring into?

LEADERSHIP: Sorry! We have zero budget for hole fixing, only water pouring. Just pour faster!

If you hear this from leadership, they don't get it.

Explain it in this way.

"We're pouring (hiring) into a leaking bucket.

Because of this leak (turnover), we're over-pouring.

Something that should be costing us $400K is costing us $1M (per year).

If we invest $5K in fixing the hole, we'll only have to spend $400K, thus saving the other $600K."

If they still don't understand, turnover is going to be the least of your problems.