Turnover—A Positive Spin

Source: Accounting Today

Barry Salzberg, managing partner of Deloitte & Touche USA, says employee migration, especially among members of generation Y (born after 1980), is inevitable. Generation Y typically doesn’t rank work ahead of personal life. Accounting firms find themselves investing heavily in trying to meet the needs of generation Y knowing the investment is very risky. Nevertheless, Salzberg, using the words of President Kennedy, says organizations should “ask not what their employees can do for them, but what they can do for their employees.”

Here are some factors that limit the risk of investing in employees:

• If ex-employees maintain positive sentiments towards the firm, they will refer prospective employees.
• Ex-employees may be sources of new business referrals.
• Ex-employees may return. Nearly 10 percent of lateral hires by Deloitte last year were former employees.

For more information see also The Positive Side of Staff Turnover.

From Accounting Today, February, 26, 2007, SourceMedia Inc., One State Street Plaza, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10004, 800-221-1809. For the complete article, click on the following link: www.webcpa.com/current_issue.cfm?pub=ato, then select Commentary: The Truth About Turnover in the February 26, 2007, issue.