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Comment by georgeecollins | Hacker News Reader

Here is a strange thing I have seen: Turnover is bad for a company overall, but good for H.R. HR teams are more important the more there is a need for recruitment. I have seen them be the part of the company that says "we are a team like a sports team, not a family," implying churn is OK. That is good for their productivity, particularly if their workload is on boarding and "culture" as well as recruiting.

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Turnover is not always bad by any means. Often a company accumulates (bad hires, acquisition, good apples going stale) people who would be better off gone for everyone's sake.

There's good turnover and bad turnover.

Exactly. In this article I was focused on regrettable turnover (when you wish the employee didn't leave), as opposed to non-regrettable turnover, which is very healthy.

In my experience, almost every time someone leaves someone regrets it and someone doesn't. The manager who supervised the person will usually say it is for the best. I have worked with great managers who clean house and terrible managers who drive people away, or treat them as scapegoats. In either case it may be identified as healthy turnover.

But when turnover is high the good ones are much more likely to be leaving.

"Good" and "bad" mean different things at different times to the same company.

True, but how often is the guy producing awful, half working, over complicated code "good" for the company? That person is typically the last to leave. And we've all seen management reward the firefighter that is also the arsonist, they are never "good" for the company, but the company thinks they are.

Doesn't the military have a deliberate policy of ensuring high turnover environments by relocating all of its staff every couple of years?

Maybe there is something to be said for preventing people from getting too comfortable, or even establish trust relationships outside of the designated bureaucratic channels.

So HR has a vested interest in doing a poor enough job in hiring people that will not stay long (i.e. churn) so that they maintain their need to hire more people? Interesting thought.

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