Organizations: High Turnover: Should You Care?

Increasing employee mobility, the degree to which workers change companies, appears to be a fact of corporate life in the 21st century. But are such workers less committed to their employers as a result?

The common perception is that workers who hop from job to job are less committed; perhaps even suffer from an inability to commit. However, the reality is that this new generation of 'knowledge nomads,' while moving frequently, do form attachments and commit to employers when they stop, according to Todd L. Pittinsky (HBS PHDOB '01) and Margaret J. Shih, in Knowledge Nomads: Organizational Commitment and Worker Mobility in Positive Perspective from the February issue of American Behavioral Scientist.

This article suggests that we should focus less on retention and more on "re-recruiting". Perhaps it's not a case of either/or ....more a "yes - and".