Here is what I have observed. Most leaders celebrate low turnover without asking a harder question: why are these people actually staying?
Gartner has a name for the answer nobody wants to hear. Regrettable retention. Keeping people who are comfortable, not people who are committed.
Laura Sorensen, the Chief People Officer at First Watch, told me something on this that stuck with me. Their founder never wrote a values document in the early years. He just hired people who were smart, collaborative, and kind, and the ones who did not fit that stood out fast, on their own, without a scorecard.
Most companies wait until culture is a problem to define it. First Watch defined it early enough that misalignment showed itself before it needed a policy to catch it.
As First Watch grew into new states, further from the people who felt the culture instinctively, they had to write it down. Not because the culture changed. Because the company got too big to rely on people just feeling it anymore.
Every year, Sorensen and two other senior leaders sit with roughly two dozen employees per region for 90 minutes, unscripted, and ask what is working and what is not. That is 150 hours a year, more than 1,500 employees, by design.
It tells you, out loud, once a year, whether the people staying are staying for the right reasons.
What surprised me most is what Sorensen says surprises her every year. It is never a big program. It is whether a manager says good morning and means it.
Their own words on this are the best line I have heard in a while: there is no such thing as survey fatigue. Only inaction fatigue.
More this week.
