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Cost of Attrition

benjiweber.co.uk

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Re: Cost of Attrition

#11

Post by gostsamo »

laurent92 wrote: post #9
gostsamo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order for a part to be entirely interchangible, you should choose the smallest common denominator of all parts to rely on as the highest value that you can get from one. I think that one must find an equilibrium but it requires active management and careful thinking to be executed properly.

Or to have great onboarding, people learn a lot, are effective quickly, and leave after learning enough. The know-how is then embedded in the process not in people, which guarantees stability, while people are guaranteed to change.

If you can embed all of your organization's knowledge in a few weeks of a single person's study, then you don't have much knowledge to begin with. Such stuff might be good for a small factory, but for nothing more complex than that.

Re: Cost of Attrition

#12

Post by enord »

Jensson wrote: post #2

Doesn't mention the benefits of attrition. A network can be robust since none of the pieces leaves, but what is even more robust is a network that constantly renews itself and gracefully handles the process of swapping out parts. Constant attrition means that your company never starts relying on individuals, instead the process survives and thrives on its own, hiring new people who then hire new people before they le…

I mean, for assembly-line production this might ring true (I wouldn't know, never did it). But for what one might reasonably categorize as "knowledge work", my experience is that knowledge reigns supreme. Some of that knowledge is shared by a whole community of practitioners, other parts of it is local and contextualized. This part probably makes up a sizable proportion of an organizations competitive advantage.

To make workers replaceable is to rely mostly on the knowledge you can reasonably expect to regain on rehire. Remember: Management (up to owner-management) are also workers, so running some kind of special culture-and-knowledge preserving über-organization is predicated on somehow retaining the structures that support and maintain this secret sauce. Military services around the world have researched this extensively (for obvious reasons), then again, we refer to a well-seasoned and experienced practitioner as a veteran. Veterans are invaluable in military service, as they are in any other endeavor. Trade them off against ease-of-management at your own peril.

Re: Cost of Attrition

#13

Post by rightbyte »

Jensson wrote: post #2

Doesn't mention the benefits of attrition. A network can be robust since none of the pieces leaves, but what is even more robust is a network that constantly renews itself and gracefully handles the process of swapping out parts. Constant attrition means that your company never starts relying on individuals, instead the process survives and thrives on its own, hiring new people who then hire new people before they le…

Sounds like wasted effort. Relying on individuals are good, since it means they are somebody to rely on.

Anyways, hand over in high turnover places is shitty anyways, since they are shitty places to work at.

Re: Cost of Attrition

#14

Post by rightbyte »

enord wrote: post #12
Jensson wrote: post #2

Doesn't mention the benefits of attrition. A network can be robust since none of the pieces leaves, but what is even more robust is a network that constantly renews itself and gracefully handles the process of swapping out parts. Constant attrition means that your company never starts relying on individuals, instead the process survives and thrives on its own, hiring new people who then hire new people before they le…

I mean, for assembly-line production this might ring true (I wouldn't know, never did it). But for what one might reasonably categorize as "knowledge work", my experience is that knowledge reigns supreme. Some of that knowledge is shared by a whole community of practitioners, other parts of it is local and contextualized. This part probably makes up a sizable proportion of an organizations competitive advantage. To m…

> I mean, for assembly-line production this might ring true

Not there either. You mess up more in the beginning. Experienced workers have better flow.

Re: Cost of Attrition

#15

Post by enord »

Just look at FAANG: Retain developers at (almost) any cost.

Pay developers like it's monopoly money.

You could call this "The benefit of retention", though that may be a bit reductive.

Re: Cost of Attrition

#16

Post by nicky0 »

oerpli wrote: post #5

While the point seems worthwhile, the animations don't help at all. Stuff moves around for no reason (some graph layouting algorithm with easing I guess), the looping is bad and it's annoying to wait for the changes and as they happen instantly A simple picture for each transition would have been simpler to implement and actually showed something.

I found the animations helpful and they conveyed the ideas in the text to me well.

Re: Cost of Attrition

#17

Post by enord »

rightbyte wrote: post #14
enord wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, for assembly-line production this might ring true (I wouldn't know, never did it). But for what one might reasonably categorize as "knowledge work", my experience is that knowledge reigns supreme. Some of that knowledge is shared by a whole community of practitioners, other parts of it is local and contextualized. This part probably makes up a sizable proportion of an organizations competitive advantage. To m…

> I mean, for assembly-line production this might ring true Not there either. You mess up more in the beginning. Experienced workers have better flow.

I would assume this as well, when i think about it. I guess learning about the industrial revolution in school kind of messed up my preconceptions.

Anyhow, this military comparison just keeps sprouting thoughts in my head. Isn't an owner-management almost perfectly comparable to aristocratic officership? Is GGP's theory of defensible churn basically a modern incarnation of feudalism and aristocratic privelege?

Re: Cost of Attrition

#18

Post by throw8932894 »

enord wrote: post #15

Just look at FAANG: Retain developers at (almost) any cost. Pay developers like it's monopoly money. You could call this "The benefit of retention", though that may be a bit reductive.

More accessible option is to pay former developers for consulting.

Re: Cost of Attrition

#19

Post by daemin »

enord wrote: post #15

Just look at FAANG: Retain developers at (almost) any cost. Pay developers like it's monopoly money. You could call this "The benefit of retention", though that may be a bit reductive.

I would say that's because they would prefer the employees to create another project internally than leave and potentially create a competitor or even a more successful service that they'll need to spend billions on to purchase.

Re: Cost of Attrition

#20

Post by jack_riminton »

enord wrote: post #12
Jensson wrote: post #2

Doesn't mention the benefits of attrition. A network can be robust since none of the pieces leaves, but what is even more robust is a network that constantly renews itself and gracefully handles the process of swapping out parts. Constant attrition means that your company never starts relying on individuals, instead the process survives and thrives on its own, hiring new people who then hire new people before they le…

I mean, for assembly-line production this might ring true (I wouldn't know, never did it). But for what one might reasonably categorize as "knowledge work", my experience is that knowledge reigns supreme. Some of that knowledge is shared by a whole community of practitioners, other parts of it is local and contextualized. This part probably makes up a sizable proportion of an organizations competitive advantage. To m…

In the military attrition is even worse because you can't fill gaps by hiring from any competitors!
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