How to Deal with Employee Turnover

Employees in turnover.OK, bring yourself online,who asks this question?I do, Chris.All right, Tom.Hey are you getting frustratedthat people are leaving?No, I had one guy leave,and the funny thingis the last three monthsI had seen it coming.Like, I kind ofknew I could telland and figured that it wouldbe a good thing for him to go.And when he left, Ithought immediatelyI would turn aroundand hire somebody else.But then I took a stepback and I was like, well,wait a minute, maybe I can.My emotion designerand I'm like, well,maybe I can kind of fill inthe gaps a little bit and see,I looked at what he was billingversus what we paid him,and it was almost awash, which really itwas handy to have him.But it was, you know, it didn'treally make any money for us.So I just kind of likeI was just curious howyou dealt with peoplewhen they come and goand how quickly do you feelthe need to replace them,that kind of thing?OK what is a reasonablelife expectancy for somebodyto work for you?I, you know, the companyis only six years old.Ryan was my firstemployee besides myself,and he'd been here 3 years.I mean, I would love people to.They're great and they'reworking out to be here forever.But I understand thatwhen people are younger,they want to move on andtry some other stuff.So, you know, three tofive years, I think,would be reasonable.I spent a lot of time coachinghim and developing himand building him and and thenhe went off into the world.OK, so I'm going to challengesome of the logic here.OK I think you wantyoung, ambitious people,and maybe we justremove the word young.Maybe people who love to learnwho are ambitious and wantto grow those peopleyou cannot keep forever.And three to five yearsis a really long time.So if he's not in or she'snot in a management position,making a lot of money at thatpoint, they need to move onand you have to be OK with that.And we used tofeel the same way.It's like god, I broughtyou on as an intern.I tell you everythingand then you turn aroundand you flip it, andyou to charge me thisand I can't afford you now.You just basicallyI just trained youto go work for the competition.Oh, I'm doingsomething wrong here.And that's the wayI used to think.I have to changemy mentality aroundthat to say, look, as an intern,I pay you very little money.And you do real workfor me at an x value.So if I pay you $10 anhour and you do the jobthat I'm building outat 80 bucks an hour,I it's a fair trade.It is a fair trade, and wehave to look at it now like I'mdesigning the jobs to bean exit situation wherepeople go through the company,they grow and they learn.And if I don't have a seniormanagement position for them,they're eventuallygoing to outgrow meand they need to leaveand actually want that.Because here's the cool thingevery two to three years,you are probablynot the same personthat you were twoor three years ago,and you don't have to carry thelegacy and the baggage of whatyou were before.All the new people we'vehired at the future.Don't understand what it isto be in the service businessto have clients yellingat you, poundingdown like where mydeliverables, all that they justknow the new future, which iscome to work whenever you want,get your jobs done,deadlines, spread lines.We just whatever weneed to do, we just do.And we're very agileand we're very light.Tomorrow we're doing a live.They don't know they'regoing to get ready for itbecause they're notstuck in old patterns.So I like it becauseit's a cleansing process.And it allows you to reevaluate,do I need this person?Is this the directionI want to go in?Because what happens overtime is as your company growsand you add moreand more people,you find that you have tojust find more and more jobs.So you just doing busywork to pay for the peoplethat you have.So I think.Your instinct wasright that you weregoing to hire somebody thanyou thought to yourself,do I need this person?How would I do this differentlyknowing what I know today?And sadly, what happensis, and this is just,I think, a truth inour industry is that.As people mature, theybecome more valuable,but then there's alsocheaper and less expensiveways to do things,so then it becomesthis thing that's pullingat two ends of the spectrum.They become morevaluable and theydeserve to have more money.But the same token, thejob that they're doingcan be done by somebodyelse for a lot less money.So it just feels to me likethe rubber band can onlypull so far before it breaks.And sometimes it'sOK to let it breakand we just have to adopta different mentality.For me, if I get two good yearsout of somebody, I'm good.OK, well, that scares meabout my other guy, mike,who is awesome, but Thanksand I agree with youand I think I wasseeing the same thing.And the other thing with it too.I just want to throw outthere for other people whoare listening that hecame to me and said, hey,I'm going to leave.I was like, I am prior companiesand prior to leadership roles,we tried to save peopleand try to keep them.No, no, no.We'll give you more money.We'll try and keep you.And typically, when theywant to go like I've learned,it's like it was like, see younicely and kind and good luck.And this is great for youand I'm happy for you,but we try and keepsomeone who wantsto leave the next six months.Terrible no, no, no, no.It's the girlfriend thatsays, I'm leaving youand you're like, no, no,no, we can make this work.Yeah, no, it's no.They made the decision already.If they weren't sure they wouldhave come to you and ask you,look, I reallywant to stay here,but I can't ignore thefinancial gap that I'm feeling.Is there anythingthat we can do boss?And then you'relike, yeah, I can.Or no, I can't.And that's the way it works.Cool thanks, man.You got to be OK with that.