staff turnover

Staff turnover is commonly counted as everyone who left, which merges situations that have nothing in common.

Voluntary departures are resignations. They tell you something about the work, the manager or the market.

Involuntary departures are dismissals, redundancies and end of fixed-term arrangements. A rise here often points to hiring or performance management rather than to retention.

Merging the two produces bad decisions. An organisation that has just run a restructure looks as though it has a retention problem, and then spends money on engagement initiatives aimed squarely at people who were never going to leave in the first place.

Count the two separately, and record the reason at the point of departure rather than reconstructing it months later from somebody’s memory of the conversation.

The Fair Work Ombudsman covers termination and final pay. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s HR management system and records management software.