Recently, I had lunch with a friend that mentioned his company was experiencing 30 to 35% turnover. He stated this was not concerning to him. In fact, he said he sees this as a positive thing because he feels the people that don’t fit with their culture are weeding themselves out. This level of turnover has a high price tag. It is definitely something that deserves further analysis and understanding because turnover is extremely costly. If you consider on average that turnover costs companies approximately 150% of the worker’s annual salary, it has a direct impact on the bottom line.

Jack Fitzenz, a noted human resource and retention expert, believes the two main reasons people leave companies are the supervisor and the culture. This is one of the main reasons it is important for companies to align their staffing and retention activities to the core culture. In the scenario described above, a good first step would be to review the company’s human systems and evaluate the processes used to recruit, hire and train employees to see if they align with the culture.