Fuzzy Trucking Math: 102% Turnover—Is That Really Possible?
For the past decade, the transportation industry has struggled with an employment crisis, as rates of trucker turnover have reached and even exceeded 100%.
But let’s pause there for a moment. Is it actually possible to lose 100% or more of your workforce and stay in business?
In short, yes. A rate of 100% doesn’t mean that every person who works for you has been fired or has quit, and a rate over 100% doesn’t place your company into some cosmic debt situation where you have fill the voids created by former personnel before you can have a single employee. In the context of trucking, a rate of or above 100% simply means that you’re losing drivers faster than you can hire them.
It’s also important to consider how that rate is calculated. Turnover generally isn’t a one-to-one comparison of the number of employees then versus the number of employees now, but an equation that accounts for all workforce changes, including new hires, over time. One simple way to do this is to divide the total amount of employees leaving over a period of time by the average number of employees leaving in that period.
I’m a marketing person, so math makes my head hurt. Let’s break it down in a story so that even I can understand:
Once upon a time, in 2016, Acme Trucking had
(A) 100 employees on January 1st, and
(B) 70 employees on December 31st.
(C) They lost 90 employees over the course of the year.
To get the average number Acme had in 2016:
Or, cheat and use an online calculator.
(D) Average employee count in 2016 was 85
Next, calculate your turnover rate by dividing the number of employees who left by your average:
Acme trucking had 106% turnover in 2016.
Not so fuzzy now. Try it with your numbers, and make your math teacher proud!
