I’ve struggled with this topic for awhile – how to quantify when someone leaves your team or company – what is the impact to you, to start all over again, even with the best of best hires.
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC OR PROVEN FORMULA.
The biggest hurdle is always the investment through training, domain knowledge and overall cohesion with the team. Measuring your external training investment is easy, but measuring internal training, knowledge transfer, etc over the course of their employment with you is very difficult.
Until now.
The variables
- X is the amount that you invest in this resource from an external training perspective.
- Y is the overall % growth of internal training an employee has received year over year. This can be different for every organization and there could (and probably is) a very complex formula behind it – but selecting this variable is up to you.
- Z is the number of years that they have been employed with the company.
The Equation
(X*Z) + ((Leaving Employee’s Salary * Y) * Z)
The Example
X = $ 2,500.00
Y = 9%
Z = 10
Old Employee’s salary = $50,000
New Employee’s salary = $60,000
($2,500.00 * 10) + (($50,000.00 * .09) * 10) = $70,000.00
So what is $70,000? Well, that is the cost of all the training that you invested in that employee before they left. Whereas you might think you are only spending an extra $10,000 in hiring costs, the hidden costs reveal that it’s more akin to $80,000 in additional costs to get that new employee up to the skill level of your previous employee.
It might not be 100% scientifically accurate, but it should make you think.
I enjoyed this article. Ive always wondered how managers view employees coming and going.