5 minBusiness
Why companies should stop trying to retain employees
Manufacturing expert Matthew Chang argues that companies should focus on building workplaces employees don't want to leave, using automation to eliminate repetitive jobs and invest in career growth.
Every CEO worries about employee retention, but the approach most companies take is fundamentally flawed, according to Matthew Chang, founder and primary engineer at Chang Robotics. Instead of focusing on how to keep people from leaving, Chang argues that businesses should build a company employees wouldn't want to leave in the first place.
Chang, who has spent much of his career designing and commissioning factories, says turnover has become so common in manufacturing that many companies simply accept it as part of doing business. In some sectors, such as consumer electronics contracting, labor-intensive food processing, and temp-heavy light manufacturing and assembly, the lowest-paid positions turn over at more than 100% every year. That means every one of those jobs is refilled annually, sometimes more than once.
Companies often measure turnover by the stack of applications they process and the number of drug tests they pay for. They budget for churn because they have come to expect it. Chang believes this acceptance is a mistake.
When his team walks into a factory to develop an automation strategy, one of the first things they study has nothing to do with equipment. It is employee turnover. Turnover reveals where the work is most broken, Chang explains. Most companies begin an automation project by asking what they can automate. Instead, his team asks a better question: what are the jobs people keep leaving?
These are rarely the roles where employees use judgment, solve problems, or develop new skills. They are repetitive, physically demanding, and ergonomically difficult jobs. These are the roles where someone leaves after four months because they cannot imagine doing the same tasks for the coming four to ten years.
Chang's approach to automation strives to eliminate the work people never wanted to do in the first place. He says many leaders still misunderstand automation, focusing on reducing labor costs. In his experience, the best automations achieve something more valuable: increasing the value of the people who remain.
When repetitive tasks disappear, employees rise to managerial roles where they work collaboratively with robots instead of repeating physical motions that wear their minds and bodies down and lead to injury. They learn software instead of simply loading parts. They become troubleshooters, trainers, and system experts instead of performing the same manual tasks thousands of times per week.
Chang's team often invites employees to volunteer for what they jokingly call robot university, months of training to help install, commission, troubleshoot, and eventually teach others how to operate new automation systems. Something remarkable happens every time, he says. The first employees to raise their hands almost always become the factory's cultural leaders. They are learning new technology, but more importantly, they are building careers. Before long, their coworkers are asking how they can join in. An automation project quickly becomes a leadership development program.
Chang does not think of automation as merely a technology investment. He believes it is one of the most overlooked people investments a company can make. Employees stay where they grow, where they are trusted with better tools, where they are continually learning, and where they can see a future.
For years, companies have tried to solve turnover with better recruiting, better perks, and better HR programs. Those all have their place, Chang says. But lasting loyalty is built much earlier. It is built the moment an employee realizes the company is investing in them.
The companies that reduce turnover in the next decade will move quickly, Chang predicts. They will be the innovators who use technology to create safer work, more meaningful careers, and a culture where the best people stay because they choose to, not because they do not have a choice. For decades, the focus has been on employee retention. Now it is time to work on becoming the kind of company people do not want to leave.
