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The Empty Chair Isn't Free · The Science of Leading

• 0:00
  Welcome to the show everybody!
• 0:01
  I'm Claire Monroe, here with Edwin Carrington.
• 0:04
  Edwin, today I want to talk about two words that most leadership teams use as if
• 0:08
  they mean the same thing: turnover and attrition.
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  Someone leaves, it goes in the report, and the conversation moves on.
• 0:16
  But I think the difference between those two words hides one of the most expensive
• 0:19
  decisions a company makes without realizing it.
• 0:22
  I agree, Claire, and the difference is simple to state.
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  Turnover is when someone leaves and you fill the seat.
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  Attrition is when someone leaves and you don't.
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  The headcount goes down and stays down.
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  One is a hiring problem.
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  The other is a design decision, whether anyone admits it or not.
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  And attrition usually gets treated as the good news, right?
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  No recruiting fees, no onboarding, one less salary.
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  Gallup has estimated that replacing an employee can cost anywhere from half to two
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  times that person's annual salary.
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  So when a role goes unfilled, the spreadsheet says you just saved all of that.
• 0:57
  The spreadsheet says that, yes.
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  The spreadsheet is measuring the wrong thing.
• 1:02
  When a chair goes empty, the work rarely disappears with it.
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  It gets redistributed, quietly, onto the people who are left.
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  Nobody approves that decision.
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  Nobody prices it.
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  It just happens on Monday morning.
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  So the cost doesn't go away.
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  It moves.
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  It moves to the people you can least afford to lose.
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  That's the part leaders miss.
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  The work flows to whoever is most capable and most reliable,
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  because they're the ones who can absorb it.
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  So the hidden bill for an empty chair lands on your best people.
• 1:33
  Okay, so let's follow that bill.
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  Where does it actually show up?
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  In three places, usually in this order.
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  First, workload.
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  The people who stayed are now doing a job and a half, and for a few weeks they
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  manage it.
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  Second, knowledge.
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  The person who left took things nobody wrote down.
• 1:50
  Which client needs a phone call before the email.
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  Why that process has an odd extra step.
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  The team finds out what was lost one mistake at a time.
• 2:00
  And third, the people who stayed start to wonder whether they're next.
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  There's research on exactly that third point.
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  Charlie Trevor at the University of Wisconsin and Anthony Nyberg published a study
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  in the Academy of Management Journal in 2008 on what happens after companies reduce
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  headcount.
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  They found that cutting a workforce by just one percent was followed by a thirty-one
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  percent increase in voluntary turnover the next year.
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  Thirty-one percent, Edwin.
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  From a one percent cut.
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  That number tells you how closely people watch.
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  The ones who stay read every departure as a signal about the company's future.
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  And the people with the most options read it first, because they're the ones
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  recruiters are already calling.
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  So a company leaves a role empty to save one salary, and the result can be that two
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  more people leave on their own.
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  And now the attrition you planned turns into turnover you didn't.
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  That's the trap.
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  Attrition isn't free.
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  It's a loan against the people who stay, and the interest is paid in burnout and in
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  departures you never saw coming.
• 3:00
  Let me push back a little, though.
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  Sometimes not backfilling is the right call.
• 3:04
  Work changes.
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  Some roles really should go away.
• 3:07
  Are you saying companies should always replace everyone who leaves?
• 3:10
  Not at all, Claire.
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  Attrition can be one of the smartest tools a leader has.
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  A retirement, a relocation, a role that automation has made smaller.
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  Those are chances to redesign the work without a layoff.
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  The problem isn't attrition.
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  The problem is attrition by accident, where the chair stays empty because nobody
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  made a decision.
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  So what does attrition on purpose look like?
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  It starts before the chair is empty.
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  You decide, for each critical role, what happens if that person leaves.
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  Replace, redesign, or retire the role.
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  You set a consistent window, say sixty to ninety days, after which an open seat
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  counts as attrition rather than a vacancy, so your numbers mean something.
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  You capture the knowledge while the person is still there, not in their last week.
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  And you are deliberate about where the work goes.
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  That last part feels like where most companies just guess.
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  Whoever has the most capacity, or whoever complains the least,
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  gets the extra work.
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  And that's where behavioral data earns its place.
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  OAD measures behavioral drive across five dimensions: Drive,
• 4:15
  Influence, Resilience, Structure and Leadership.
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  It shows how each person is wired to operate under the pressure of their role.
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  So when you redistribute work, you can see who is built to absorb a heavier,
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  more structured load and who will quietly burn out under it.
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  You reconfigure roles and teams with evidence instead of guesswork.
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  Which also tells you something about the original question.
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  If you can't redistribute the work without burning someone out,
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  maybe that chair shouldn't stay empty after all.
• 4:43
  Exactly.
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  Track both numbers, turnover and attrition, side by side.
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  Turnover tells you how well you hire and keep people.
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  Attrition tells you how well you design the work around the people you have.
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  A company that only watches one of them is only seeing half of its people decisions.
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  So if you want to know how your own people are wired before the next chair goes
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  empty, start with the person you trust most on your team.
• 5:07
  OAD's free Top Performer Profile takes seven minutes, you get results in twenty-four
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  hours, and there's no credit card.
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  That's O-A-D dot A-I.
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  An empty chair is still a decision, Claire.
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  Make it on purpose.
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  Perfect place to leave it.
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  Thanks for the wisdom, Edwin.
• 5:22
  Always a pleasure, Claire.