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Given two companies, one with above average turnover and one with below average turnover, What can we say? I think we can say very little without more investiga
by raganwald 17y ago
Given two companies, one with above average turnover and one with below average turnover, What can we say? I think we can say very little without more investigation. The high turnover place may be terrible. On the other hand, it may be unafraid to hire really great people. It may try really really hard to keep them. It may be a tremendous victory for that company when a great person stays.
The other company may be very cautious about hiring. It may pass over great people that might leave, choosing instead to hire average to below-average people that have fewer options and little ambition.
There are other explanations, of course. I'm just pointing out that Mark and Tony might both be right, or neither might be right. It's all in the day-to-day execution of hiring people and managing them and running the business. Turnover alone is neither good nor bad in and of itself.
- pchristensen 17y agoThey also said those were their goals. They didn't mention their actual turnover. So while Zappos may have lower turnover than Facebook, it's because they're optimizing for that condition. Zappos is explicitly creating a culture of longevity.
- raganwald 17y agoI agree that Zappos is optimizing for low turnover. I cannot comment on Zappos specifically because I don't know them, I'm just pointing out that some companies optimize for low turnover in a very poor way, so I suggested that how a company achieves its turnover is more important than the turnover itself. I suspect we are in violent agreement on this, just saying it in different ways.
- pchristensen 17y agoViolent agreement indeed! I said also because I was adding to, expanding on your point :)