Journal ·
A single turnover rate is not a leaver map
Why a company-wide percentage hides first-year nights, March exits after overtime, and the handful of people who make a site look “volatile.”
Boards like a single percentage. It fits on a slide with a red or green arrow. It also lets a hiring freeze land on the wrong grade.
When we open a leaver file, the first split is tenure, not directorate. People who leave in the first six months are a different story from people who leave after eight years with a pension date in sight. Mixing them produces a rate that no operational lead recognises, which is why the meeting then becomes a fight about whether HR “has a grip.”
The second split is month. Retail and care often bleed in a different month from the one the bonus scheme was designed around. Logistics depots in the Midlands, in one study, lost drivers in March after a winter of overtime, not in January when the bonus hit payroll. A year-to-date rate made the bonus look as if it had failed. The month chart made it look as if the bonus had been aimed at the wrong calendar.
The third split is volume. A site can look volatile because eight people left. If six of them were on the same fixed-term cohort, you do not have a culture crisis. You have a contract end-date that nobody put on the establishment table.
We still calculate the company-wide rate, because someone will ask. We put it in an appendix. The front of the pack is the map. If a sponsor wants the appendix on the cover, we talk about whether we are the right practice for that paper.