I’ve spent years working with manufacturers and analyzing MAGNET survey data across the region. What I see is a silent bleed—millions lost not because you can’t find talent, but because you can’t keep it. And the cause isn’t HR. It’s operations. It’s leadership. And it’s fixable.
Let’s walk through what turnover is really doing to your business, how to calculate the impact using your own data, and what you can do about it. If this hits close to home, you’ll want to know about the assessment we’ve developed to help you turn things around.
Turnover Isn’t an HR Problem: It’s an Operations Fire
Most manufacturers think HR owns retention. That’s not completely accurate. HR can help you find people, but only operations and leadership can keep them. If your training is weak, your management unclear, or your shop culture toxic, no amount of recruiting will keep people.
If HR can offer the essentials (competitive compensation and benefits) and you still struggle with turnover, there are other reasons employees might feel undervalued or unsure about their future with the company. The hard truth is that when turnover is attributed mainly to HR, there might be some leadership blindness at play; we’ll get into that later. While there may be room for improvement within your human resources department, the real work—and the real fix—happens on the floor.
Turnover is more than just a revolving door—it’s a profit leak. Here's how the cost stacks up:
The benchmark: every departure costs about one-third of that employee’s salary. For a $50,000 worker, you’re burning $16,500—and that’s before you count lost production. (Now’s probably when you’ll want to sit down and take a breath.)
Here are the metrics MAGNET recommends tracking:
Metric 1: Turnover rate in the first 90 days
This shows how broken your onboarding or culture may be.
Metric 2: Total recruiting cost per hire
Don’t guess. Include your team’s time at hourly rates plus hard costs.
Metric 3: Vacancy days x daily contribution margin
This is usually the biggest hidden cost—and the one most leaders miss.
Here’s a sample calculation: a 50-person shop losing 12 technicians annually is likely absorbing over $300,000 in costs. That’s 3% of your revenue gone to turnover.
Multiply that across multiple years, and you’re looking at a major drag on profitability.
You might be wondering if this is something you can really tackle—if the effort will be worth it. Here’s what I recommend.
First, look at the numbers: turnover rate, cost of recruiting, unfilled positions. If these numbers are bad, you can’t keep doing the same thing. If you don’t have historical data to compare with your current numbers, you can compare them against a benchmark.
Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking, ‘well, these are my numbers, and we can probably make only minor improvements.’ If you think it can’t get much better, you’re wrong.
Next, think about what keeps you up at night. If it’s workforce-related (can’t find people, constant quitting, long lead times, backorders, customers are complaining), then regardless of what your numbers say, you need to look into addressing your turnover issues.
Finally, look at your employees to see how engaged they are. Engaged workers are happy workers. They want to stay. They come up with ideas. They’re willing to work overtime. They follow the rules and work safely. If you have engaged workers, you’ll see positive benefits.
On the other hand, if you feel like you’re getting the bottom of the barrel when it comes to new hires, you need to do something about it. Unengaged workers are unhappy workers, which leads to safety issues, poor production output, and attrition.
G+D Manufacturing came to MAGNET because of low retention, high turnover, and a lack of supportive training tools. In 8 months, we cut the employee training ramp-up from 40 days to 21. That’s 19 more productive days per hire. With 15 new hires annually, that’s 285 days of output gained—a six-figure swing.
G+D greatly improved their retention. MAGNET clients typically reduce turnover 20–50% in 6–12 months. The continuous improvement manager at G+D said this about it: “Now I have educated operators on equipment that are able to sustain rate, and we’re able to make money quicker.” How did they do it? Not with HR heroics. With operational clarity, leadership accountability, and better communication.
Turnover is the symptom. But the root causes? Unclear expectations. Broken processes. Bad mid-level management. Weak feedback loops. You need to find those and fix them.
The first step is to find out what the problem is. (Step 0 is to pay enough and offer insurance; that’s table stakes for reducing turnover.)
Most people’s first step is to find out why employees are leaving, but that’s not as helpful as you might think. At exit interviews, you’ll only hear the negative. Instead, talk to the people who like working at your company. Why people leave is different than why they stay, and you want to focus on why they stay. Listen to what they like, and do more of that.
You might want to bring in another person to give you an unbiased (and confidential) assessment of your organization. Sometimes leaders can’t clearly see what’s happening at their company because they’re too used to it. Find someone you trust—a friend, colleague, someone from your board of directors—and have them tell you what they see.
When this trusted person sees employees pop up wide-eyed like meerkats at the zoo when the president comes into the work area, they’ll recognize the culture issue you’ve been overlooking.
Hard news is never fun to hear, but be willing to listen. Hearing you have a culture problem is tough, but then you can start to do something about it.
Culture comes from the top down, which makes you the perfect person to fix it.
Our Workforce Engagement and Productivity Assessment is like a checkup for your retention system. This is a one-on-one conversation between the CEO/president and a MAGNET expert. We come in, analyze your actual data, and show you:
For a limited time, we’re offering the assessment for just $500 (valued at $2,000) for Northeast Ohio manufacturers who qualify. Give us 2-3 hours of your time, and you’ll get an action plan designed for your exact situation—and the assurance that your confidentiality is of utmost importance to us.
“Our turnover is average—why fix it?”
Because average still costs you 5% of revenue. That’s a competitive advantage waiting to happen.
“We’re under 100 people. Will this still work?”
Yes. Smaller teams feel turnover more. One resignation is 4% of your workforce.
“Isn’t this about higher pay?”
Pay matters—but it’s not the full story. I’ve seen high-paying shops lose workers and modest-paying shops keep them. Culture wins.
“We don’t have HR bandwidth.”
You don’t need it. This is an operations issue. We coach your leadership team through it.
Book your $500 Workforce Engagement and Productivity Assessment today. A MAGNET workforce expert—Aram, Bass, or myself—will review your data, identify your biggest leaks, and give you an action plan.
Every day you wait is another day your best people carry extra weight-or leave entirely.
Let’s stop the bleeding.
👉 Get Details About the Assessment and Book Your Spot Now