Hi Reader! Daria’s here.

What’s one of the few metrics everyone agrees on? The CEO watches it. The CFO watches it. HR watches it.

Turnover.

It's important because it tells you something is wrong. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you what exactly is broken. So we do the usual fixes: hire faster, pay more, improve onboarding, run another leadership program. Sometimes one of them helps. But what if it doesn’t?

Value Pathing

In the latest Built by People Leaders episode, I talk with Clark Ingram, a CHRO across four industries and founder of People Profits, about the reasons people really leave. One of them is the gap between what someone is worth and what you pay them.

As someone trains up and gets better at the job, their value to the business climbs. But their pay usually doesn’t because organizations have a process, a schedule, an approval chain, whatever else that prevents people from getting what they are worth. So they start looking elsewhere, where their contribution will be fairly recognized.

Here’s how value pathing closes that gap.

Map the gap. For a role where you keep losing people, plot how the person’s value grows over time, and how their pay grows; where the two lines separate is where people leave.

Fund the raise where the value shows up. The money doesn’t have to come from nowhere. At one company, clients paid more for technicians as they completed training modules — so a portion of that increase went straight to the employee. The person becomes worth more to a client; the pay follows the same curve. When you can point to where the money comes from, the raise is easy to defend.

Raise pay early. Move the increase ahead of the gap, not after it, and show people the path so they know what staying earns them.

Why it works

A raise tied to time served comes too late—after the value grew and after a competitor called. Value pathing pays as the value grows, so you keep people before anyone else gets the chance. And because the raise follows value the business can see, it holds up to the CFO.

Thanks to that approach over his last five years at one company, Clark had zero turnover among his senior technicians.

Try it this week

Pick one role where you keep losing people six to eighteen months in — long enough to get good, not long enough to feel repaid.

Sketch two lines for that role: how a person’s value to the business grows over their first two years, and how their pay grows. Use whatever stands in for value — skills, certifications, output, what a client pays for their time.

Then answer three questions:

Where do the lines separate? That’s your poach point.

What rise in value can you tie pay to — a certification, a client outcome, a module completed — so the money has a visible source?

Can you move that raise ahead of the poach point instead of behind it?

If the two lines separate anywhere in the first two years, you’ve found where your turnover is coming from.

One line worth keeping

“One plus one equals two every time. People are not that way.” — Clark Ingram.

The full episode has the rest: why trying to recruit your way out of turnover never works, the “I’ll help you pack” test for telling good turnover from bad, and how to find your organization’s own specific reason people leave instead of chasing a generic one. You can listen on your favorite platform.

See you next week.

Daria

P.S. If a name came to mind while you were reading — a leader you know who’s still catching their breath after a hard season — forward this their way. Sometimes the most useful thing is knowing the gap has a name.