“Inching Up” Isn’t Precise Enough
At the Arlington County Board’s February 24, 2011 budget work session, one Board member raised a question about staff turnover rates. When the Board met with the personnel department to consider the Human Resource Department (HRD) budget, HRD provided the Board a chart of staff turnover by department (see Staff Turnover Rates at the Board Work Session Follow-up webpage).
The chart shows turnover rates for each county department for fiscal years 2008, 2009, and 2010. Overall, the county saw a turnover rate of 10% in FY 08. The rate then dropped to 9% in both FY 09 and FY 10. Although shown as 9% for those two years, HRD provided County Board members with the FY 2012 Compensation Analysis (also available at the Board Work Session Follow-up webpage), which reports the turnover as “inching upward” from 8.5% for 2009 to 9.3% for FY 2010.
Two departments experienced low turnover rates, at least relative to the overall rate, i.e., the Fire Department (6%/3%/6%) and the Police Department (8%/7%/6%).
In the Compensation Analysis, HRD writes that the turnover rate is “not necessarily alarming, this may be an indicator that employees are more willing to move to other organizations, whether for salary increases or other reasons.” Unfortunately, there is no analysis of exit interviews that would provide management a more precise indication of why employees are really leaving.
It might be helpful if county management cooperated with their regional cohorts to produce a report similar to the report produced by the regional school boards, i.e., the WABE Guide (available at the Arlington Public Schools website) with a compendium of performance indicators to compare a wide-range of local government operations.
The Compensation Analysis does express a concern about the salary structure. In support, it provides three indicators, e.g., the maximum salary for 77% of “benchmark jobs” lag behind the “average maximums;” approximately 50% of new hires are brought on “above mid-point;” and, approximately 22% of the workforce will be at the “maximum of their pay grade by the end of FY 2011.” The analysis provides other data as well, but unfortunately, it doesn’t show how many employees are leaving to enter the private workforce.