Very basic article on retention

[Flying Pig]

http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Top_10_ways_to_ensure_your_best_people_will_quit_47779.aspx

I can read through this and just say "Yip"...."Yip"....."Yip"....

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

My wife's former boss said he preferred everyone being at everyone else's proverbial throats...he said "that way more work gets done because there isn't all this babbling."

I told that to my Sociology professor and he said "that's just stupid."

[a2capt]

I worked for one guy, for almost 18 years. I'm really not sure how. In the beginning, I didn't know any better. For quite a while I presumed that this is just the way it is. He fit 8 out of those 10 points.

My first job was at a car wash for about 6 weeks, and since I was "the new guy" I never got a chance to do the final detailing, so the "tips" they lured you into the job with just never happened. They said each week you'll be doing something different until you learn everything, in about a month. On the fourth week I was still loading rags into the washer and spraying "bug juice" on the fronts of cars as they went in. I checked, they said the schedule was done, can't be changed.

Ended up at a retail computer store, during my first year of high school, and hung around there for a couple years before getting into arcade machines and placing them in bars, restaurants, etc. Did some college after high school and ended up in retail again, back end support, product research, R&D, making and marketing Apple II peripherals. That evolved into being the one man IT dept. that I did for the better part of that 18 years as the company expanded to mail order and 6 retail locations, before contracting back into just mail order. The micro-managing would just never allow things to thrive because it killed enthusiasm. I was "spoiled" by the short commute, and somehow put up with the shenanigans.

Until a point when I was going to crack if I didn't bail. I jumped ship to a client, and then the economy crashed hard. That turned into much of the same kind of environment and dog-eat-dog, plus I ended up stumbling on a one man theft ring, and when that guy saw that I was particularly observant, he got nervous and hung me out to dry with being laid off making sense in light of the collapsing contracts and shrinking workload.

Yeah, it kinda screwed me up in the work world. It's really a trip. In the mid 1980s, you went in and filled out a form. Talked to someone, maybe did a little hands on demo, working interview kind of thing, and that was it. No I-9, no bringing passports or birth certificates to formal application meetings. A resume was  pretty straight forward.  Write down your stuff.

After that, it turned into "no, it's gotta be one page or less, or they are just going to throw it away", "You've got to stand out, go over and spy on them, see what they wear on the job, don't over/under dress for the interview", "read about the company, look up it's products, services.. but don't do too much name dropping, but do just enough".

It's all about pedigree and less about skills and ability it seems. I never had time to chase certifications, yet all the younger hires after would be given time, and then they'd bail. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The first thing on that list is a big one, followed by the second. Equally doesn't always work. Fairness wins over. Mediocrity being tolerated kills the others motivationally.

[Eclipse]

Wow - pretty much sums up most CAP operations...

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

You'll have to add/change/modify things on that list if you're working for a family business...especially if you're one of the only ones working there who is not related/good friends with/goes to the same church as "the family."

Talk about being out of the loop on almost everything...not to mention often being the only one "left behind" to hold things down at the workplace when "the family" all went to lunch together (usually long lunches).

BTDT.  Lasted about three years and swore "never again."

[RNOfficer]

http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Top_10_ways_to_ensure_your_best_people_will_quit_47779.aspx

I can read through this and just say "Yip"...."Yip"....."Yip"....

Most members don't know that the CAP looses one-quarter of its Senior membership every year. It shows that there are serious problems in the organization. Members pay money to join, buy uniforms then a quarter quit every year.

I've never seen any data on what proportion of these are newer members or what.

[SunDog]

I think thise leaving may be the wrong fourth. . .

[rmutchler]

I've experienced a few of those in my IT career...

[LSThiker]

Most members don't know that the CAP looses one-quarter of its Senior membership every year. It shows that there are serious problems in the organization. Members pay money to join, buy uniforms then a quarter quit every year.

I've never seen any data on what proportion of these are newer members or what.

Without something else to gauge from, that is simply just a number.  How do the boy scouts, ACA, Sea Scouts, etc etc etc compare to those numbers.  Without knowing other organizations, it could be high, it could be low, or it could be average.

When I worked at Wal-Mart in college, my store had a 27% turn-over rate.  Looking at that number, it seems high.  However, when you compared it to the other stores (including similar size stores) in the area, it was on the low end. 

[SunDog]

Just guesing, I bet it's churn in new members, mostly?  They do the the cycle of enthusiasm, disillusionment, the resignation, maybe?  Some of the folks that seem to hang in longer maybe have greater tolerance for the time-sucks? And focus more on their area of interest (CP, ES etc.) and less on the bad parts?

Just anecdotally, it seems to be the case in my old sqdn - a hard core, long term few, and churn on newbies and semi-newbies (more than a year or two, less than 5 or 6 years?).

We've had pilots walk off, then come back after a break. When they leave the second time, though, that's usually it.  CP has the involved parents who move on in four of five years, after their kid(s) age out or lose inerest. But that makes sense, really.

NHQ may know - you ought to ask them.

[Eclipse]

My gut feeling was that churn was around 20-25%.  It turns out from an un-attributable source with
real numbers it's actually more like 41% in the cadet program.  To be fair, that's going to be somewhat expected,
especially nowadays, because adolescents are going to be "testing the water" on a lot of things, and
many will quit the minute they see CAP requires more then mere presence, but that still represents
a significant problem, because it means CAP is either misrepresenting itself to many of its new recruits,
or failing to execute on promises made.

People don't quit when they feel their time is well-spent.

Churn costs money and time, neither of which CAP has in abundance, especially the latter.

It also robs the organization of the ability to grow, and the worse it gets, the more is expected of
the shrinking number who stay. 

The knowledgebase decreases, the organizational experience decreases, and the ability for the
organization to by "nimble" when needed decreases, eventually becoming exponential.

It generally takes about a year for a new member to be able to contribute to the organization
in a way which makes their contribution worth the expense of recruiting them.  Some of the
expense is "soft cost" (a concept apparently completely foreign to many in CAP), and some
is real-world (i.e training budget, cadet uniforms, etc.)  all of that is wasted on someone
who churns in the first year of membership - the time being the most valuable and irreplaceable of
the resources.

Anyone with sales or management experience knows that churn can kill a business.  One of the reasons
Apple has been so successful is not the "new" customer, but the "loyal" customer - an area where
some analysts believe the rose is beginning to wilt because the differentiation between their products and
the rest of the market no longer justifies the significantly higher acquisition cost.  With tons of money
and a core group of loyal customers, you can ride that flat-line crest for quite a while, until eventually
your inertia runs out and things start to rolls backwards.

Sound familiar?

When I worked at Wal-Mart in college, my store had a 27% turn-over rate. 

In this case, we're not talking about employee churn, we're talking customer churn, since the membership
is both the customer and the employee, so comparing it to a business like Walmart doesn't work, since,
by design, a large number of their employees will be transitory, either because the are temporary,
in school, or looking for better jobs.

CAP, on the other hand, endeavors to build members who stay for life.

The saddest part of the situation is that CAP's churn, especially on the senior side, is pretty much 100% self-inflicted
because of lack of strategic management in the adult missions, the perpetuation of fiefdoms, and the
generally low level of member expectation.  Members who don't randomly find something that
catches their interest and needs their help early-on tend to focus on the negative and inertia and
bail before they can even give CAP a legitimate chance.

And many of those we'd want the most as members, don't have the time or tolerance for the nonsense they
encounter when trying to get even the most basic tasks accomplished like "joining" or get cockpit qualified,
etc.  They have a few hours a month, give CAP a first try, then a second try, and then move on because they
have better ways to spend their time.  In many cases, the professionals we so sorely need and seek-out
are losing billable hours while they sit listening to people with 10 years experience who know less about a topic then
everyone else in the room because that "training" is "mandatory".

With the purported resources, connections, and member initiative CAP squanders every year, we should be
the premiere volunteer and youth development organization in the country, but sadly we can't even get out
of our own way.

I saw this 15 years ago and denied the "olde timers" when they spoke of these issues, vowing to be one of the
people to fix things. The problem is the "rock" hasn't changed, and many of the people who comprise it
simply hang around longer then Sisyphus can tolerate.

[Private Investigator]

http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Top_10_ways_to_ensure_your_best_people_will_quit_47779.aspx

I can read through this and just say "Yip"...."Yip"....."Yip"....

That was a good read. 

[LSThiker]

, so comparing it to a business like Walmart doesn't work,

No it does not work.  So I am not sure why you are comparing CAP to Wal-Mart?

[Garibaldi]

, so comparing it to a business like Walmart doesn't work,

No it does not work.  So I am not sure why you are comparing CAP to Wal-Mart?

CAPMart?

[Eclipse]

, so comparing it to a business like Walmart doesn't work,

No it does not work.  So I am not sure why you are comparing CAP to Wal-Mart?

When I worked at Wal-Mart in college, my store had a 27% turn-over rate.  Looking at that number, it seems high.  However, when you compared it to the other stores (including similar size stores) in the area, it was on the low end.

[LSThiker]

, so comparing it to a business like Walmart doesn't work,

No it does not work.  So I am not sure why you are comparing CAP to Wal-Mart?

When I worked at Wal-Mart in college, my store had a 27% turn-over rate.  Looking at that number, it seems high.  However, when you compared it to the other stores (including similar size stores) in the area, it was on the low end.

Yes I know what I wrote, but re-read what I wrote. I was not comparing CAP and Wal-Mart. I was using Wal-Mart as an example of why a number is just a number without a standard.

[SunDog]

And many of those we'd want the most as members, don't have the time or tolerance for the nonsense they
encounter when trying to get even the most basic tasks accomplished like "joining" or get cockpit qualified,
etc.  They have a few hours a month. . .

I clobbers longer term members, too - just flat wears your butt out, ya know?  But well said. . .well said

[RNOfficer]

Just guesing,

That's just it. You're guessing. NHQ is only guessing also because they have never made any effort to find out WHY people quit.

A second point is that with Seniors, we are talking about adults here. The Cadet dropout rate is closer to 50%. To me, a high dropout rate for Cadets makes more sense. Teenagers have lots of demands on their time and they're impulsive.

My experience with Seniors is that the drop-outs come from ALL experience levels: some are newer members, some have several years in, some 10 or more.

[rustyjeeper]

Just guesing,

That's just it. You're guessing. NHQ is only guessing also because they have never made any effort to find out WHY people quit.

A second point is that with Seniors, we are talking about adults here. The Cadet dropout rate is closer to 50%. To me, a high dropout rate for Cadets makes more sense. Teenagers have lots of demands on their time and they're impulsive.

My experience with Seniors is that the drop-outs come from ALL experience levels: some are newer members, some have several years in, some 10 or more.

My experience is the same as yours.
The one common thread I saw in every person that left was FRUSTRATION.....

[BSH]

Thanks for the thread. As a new guy, this helps me sort of see what politics to avoid and what parts I should focus on in the long term. I'm so new CAP is still processing my registration. With how I interpret the thread, the best thing I can do is find a niche interest I enjoy in the specialty tracks and focus down on that? I'm pretty introverted when it comes to personality, so most politics is noise to me.