October 31 2024

Underestimating the True Cost of High Turnover

Let’s rewind to my first real leadership role; retail. That magical world of folding shirts no one would buy, dealing with coupons that expired in 2007, and managing a schedule that could change three times in one shift.

In retail, hiring was a volume game. It had to be. You’d post a “Now Hiring” sign, bring in ten people, and cross your fingers that maybe two of them would still be showing up after the first week. The others? Ghosted. Vanished. Gone before the first timeclock punch. One girl didn’t come back after lunch. One guy quit because we asked him to move a box.

So yeah, we hired fast. We had to. Warm bodies were better than no bodies, and if someone stuck it out for a full pay cycle, we celebrated like they hit a five-year milestone. I treated hiring like a bulk buy at Costco grab a bunch and and anyone worth it would stick it out.

And back then, it sort of worked.

But retail turnover is expected. It’s part of the model. The stakes are low, and the cost of a bad hire is usually a few hours of re-training and a slight dent in morale.

Then I left retail.

When I transitioned into managing roles that actually mattered the ones that affected customer relationships, revenue, brand reputation, and team dynamics. I realized quickly: the high-turnover strategy from retail doesn’t work when the job actually matters.

Unfortunately, I had to watch as others made this mistake for me.

Watching Others Crash and Burn So I Didn’t Have To

I did something a little rare for a first-time leader stepping into higher-stakes hiring: I observed. I watched how others approached it. And what I saw made my eye twitch.

It was like retail all over again, except worse. I saw managers hire on impulse. One interview. One handshake. One gut feeling. No real vetting. No culture consideration. Just “I like them. They start Monday.”

Sounded familiar, but this time, the jobs weren’t about stocking shelves they were running projects, managing accounts, or interfacing with clients. These weren’t throwaway roles. These were the people who could tank an initiative or turn a happy client into a lawsuit with one bad email.

And guess what? The fallout was brutal:

Team performance cratered.
Morale took nosedives.
Customer complaints piled up.
And managers? They were too busy rehiring to actually lead.

I took note mentally and sometimes literally. Every warm-body hire that turned into a flameout confirmed what I already suspected: rushed hiring is a long-term liability disguised as a short-term solution.

So I did what any stubborn, mildly-traumatized-from-retail leader would do I went the other way.

The Slow Hire Advantage (Even When It’s Inconvenient)

Let me be honest slowing down the hiring process didn’t make me any friends in the “we need help now” crowd. Some leaders grumbled. A few peers questioned my sanity. And yes, there were moments when I was short-staffed and seriously considered recruiting from my local Tim Hortons just to get some relief.

But I stuck to it. Because I knew the real cost wasn’t a longer hiring window it was redoing the same hire two or three times. I wasn’t interested in running a hamster wheel. I wanted to build a team that could walk in, find their lane, and run.

And over time, that’s exactly what started to happen.

Instead of:

New hires quitting after 3 week or months…
Customers asking, “Do you have anyone consistent?”
High performers burning out from constantly training replacements and covering the open positions workload

We had:

Employees sticking for years!
Customer retention and satisfaction at all time highs
A culture that didn’t flinch every time someone gave notice because notice became rare.

And the best part? The business actually got easier to run.

burning dollar sign symbol with fire and smoke. illustration of economic recession great depression volatility in stock market and economy

The Real Cost of Turnover (And Why It’s Not Just About Money)

Let’s get down to brass tacks: most people talk about turnover like it’s just a line item on a budget. Recruiting costs, onboarding hours, lost productivity and yes, those all matter. But the real damage happens in the emotional trenches of your team.

High turnover creates low trust.

Every time someone leaves, your team asks three things:

Why did they leave?
Am I next?
Are we okay?

And if you don’t have answers or worse, if the answer is “bad hiring again” your credibility starts to fray. Leaders think they’re judged on results. True. But they’re also judged on consistency. And nothing feels less consistent than working in a place where people vanish like socks in the dryer.

That’s the part I didn’t understand back in retail. Back then, we expected people to leave. In professional roles? Your team expects you to get it right.

Lesson in Values: Competence Alone Isn’t Enough

One of the biggest shifts I made was learning that competence was only one-third of the hiring equation.

Sure, someone can be a technical wizard. But if they walk around with a dark cloud over their head, bulldoze their teammates, or treat customers like they’re doing them a favor? That person will wreck your culture.

I made this mistake once when I hired a guy who had all the credentials but none of the vibe. During the interview, I thought, “He seems a little intense, but wow his resume is fantastic.”

Well, he was intense all right. Intense in the way a bear is intense when it finds an open picnic basket. He was smart but abrasive. Efficient but condescending. He created division in a matter of weeks and singlehandedly made wrecked the culture I had built with the rest of the team.

Lesson learned:

Competence gets you an interview. Culture gets you a job. Character lets you stay.

Building a Retention-First Culture

After surviving a few cultural implosions, I started focusing on a new mission: not just hiring right, but retaining right.

That meant:

Investing in real onboarding.
Not a 90-minute PowerPoint marathon with the HR generalist and a vending machine map. I mean structured, intentional onboarding with goals, mentorship, and check-ins that didn’t feel like performance reviews.
Creating purpose beyond the paycheck.
Turns out, people don’t leave jobs they leave boredom, confusion, and managers who disappear for weeks at a time. When people know why they matter, they stick around longer.
Saying no to maybe-hires.
If someone gave me a gut feeling of “ehh, maybe they’ll be okay,” I passed. Because you know what “maybe okay” turns into? A future vacancy.
Normalizing feedback.
Not once-a-year-performance-review feedback. Real-time, “Hey, this is working / this isn’t” type of feedback. When people know where they stand, they’re less likely to stand somewhere else.

**Retail Flashback: When High Turnover Did Make Sense**

Now here’s where the past meets the present.

Every now and then, I’ll meet a young manager just getting started—often in retail, hospitality, or service industries, asking me, “How do I stop turnover?”

And I’ll smile, because I’ve been there. And I’ll say, “You probably don’t. Yet.”

Because in those industries, you’re often the entry point. The first job. The test run. High turnover isn’t always a sign of failure it’s often a sign of growth. For them.

But I always follow with this:

“Even if turnover is inevitable, don’t make it worse with bad hires. Hire with intent. Onboard like it matters. And treat people with respect even if they’re only going to be there for three months.”

Because that retail kid you trained might go on to run a multimillion-dollar operation one day. (Ask me how I know.)

The Redemption Arc, Part 2: Hiring Became a Strength

Years later, I was asked to help design hiring systems for a growing company with a reputation for churn. They had great products, strong leadership, and the right funding but they couldn’t keep people. Every quarter felt like musical chairs, and HR was on the verge of hiring emotional support animals.

I walked in, dusted off my lessons, and we rebuilt the system:

We redefined job roles by actual outcomes not wish lists.
We cut the interview process from 5 scattered meetings to 2 structured ones.
We created onboarding blueprints that focused on integration, not just paperwork.
We got serious about exit interviews then actually acted on the insights.

Within one year, turnover dropped by 40%. Within two, retention had doubled. And culture? It didn’t just stabilize it grew roots.

Hiring had become one of my favorite parts of leadership. (Right up there with catching someone thriving in their role and knowing you helped put them there.)

Final Thoughts: The Cost of Turnover Is the Cost of Leadership

When I look back, I realize turnover was never the enemy. The real enemy was disregarding what turnover was trying to tell me:

You’re moving too fast.
You’re hiring for the wrong things.
You’re skipping the hard parts; onboarding, culture, development.

And the moment I started treating people like long-term investments instead of short-term solutions, everything shifted.

Because let’s be real: anyone can hire fast. Anyone can post a job, grab the first smiling face, and hand them a laptop. But leadership? That’s hiring right even if it takes longer. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when your calendar is screaming for relief.

Because one great hire will solve more problems than ten warm bodies ever could.

So, take it from someone who learned by trial, error, and the occasional breakdown in the backroom of a strip mall store: Hiring is not about filling seats. It’s about building something that lasts.