Oy veh.  Not like that.  My mom would plotz.

I finally understand.

I never looked at it like this before.

I’m no longer going to have to bang my head against the wall.  I still might, but I don’t have to.

Here it is.

Ready?

Turnover doesn’t cost a company anything.  In fact, turnover can have a positive impact on the bottom line.  Think about it, it’s true.  The majority of costs in an organization are tied directly to labor, wages and benefits.  Dump an employee and you can deduct an average of $40,000 in comp and benefits off the “cost” side of the Profit and Loss statement.  Twenty five terminations in a year mean a cool million dollars.  And as I have said before, savings go right to the bottom line.

All this time I’ve been trying to argue the other side, but I saw it so clearly driving back from a client meeting today.  After trying to explain the cost of turnover, he finally put in all in perspective for me…

“Marc, there is no cost of turnover in my organization.  The only time I pay anything for employee turnover is when I have to replace that employee“.

So, I make you this vow.

Never will I write the words “cost of turnover”, ’cause as I learned today, there is none.

But I will sure write about the “cost of replacing workers”, ’cause that number is huge.

See, I can change.

It just takes a really really really really long time.  Really.