Your turnover rate is a vanity metric.
It tells you how many people left. It doesn’t tell you anything that matters.
Two companies. Both have 30 employees. Both lose six people this year. 20% turnover.
At the first company, four of those people weren’t working out anyway. They were wrong for the role. The positions were easy to fill. The replacements ended up stronger. Two other people left for personal reasons. The business barely noticed.
At the second company, they lost both crew leads, their dispatcher, their best technician and two people who had been there for years.
They have the same turnover rate. They don’t have the same problem.
One company made the business stronger. The other broke critical infrastructure. But the number looks identical.
This is why chasing a lower turnover rate is a trap.
You start optimizing for the wrong thing. You avoid firing people who should have been gone six months ago because you’re worried about the number. You move slower on replacing someone who quit because you’re counting. You keep people in the wrong roles because the alternative is admitting turnover happened.
You end up with a lower turnover number and a worse business.
The real questions aren’t about the rate. They’re about who.
Did you want them to stay? If yes, why did they leave? That’s a problem you can fix. If no, you just made the business better.
How long had they been there? Six months is different from six years. One tells you something about hiring or onboarding. The other tells you something about retention.
Were they difficult to replace? Some positions are. Some aren’t. Some departures hurt. Some don’t.
What happened to the business after they left? Did work stop? Did a customer leave? Did the team get stronger? Did nothing change?
That’s where the diagnosis lives. That’s where you find out if you have a turnover problem or just normal business movement.
Your turnover rate is fine. Your understanding of what it means is what needs work.