Your Retention Crisis Won't End Until You Make This Shift If your company is in a high-turnover industry, it is within your control to be transformational or transactional with your employees.
By Adam Horlock Edited by Maria Bailey
Key Takeaways
- High employee turnover isn’t an industry problem — it’s a culture problem companies can solve through intentional transformation.
- Sustainable retention starts with assessing internal misalignment, empowering employees and committing to consistent cultural improvements.
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
In boardrooms and Zoom calls everywhere, the same excuses are repeated:
"Our industry is too competitive. We're fighting for every dollar and every employee."
"We have one of the highest turnover rates out there — it's just the nature of the business."
"This is just how it is. It won't change."
Here's the truth: It's not your industry. It's your company. More specifically, it's your culture. High turnover, low engagement and poor retention aren't industry mandates — they're signals of internal issues that need attention. And if you want to build a resilient business, you need to stop outsourcing the blame.
Transactional leadership isn't working
Start with the employee experience. If your relationship with your team is purely transactional — do your job, collect a paycheck — then you're not building loyalty. You're building burnout.
What do employees say about your culture when leadership isn't around? What do they really think about their opportunities, support or team dynamics? If you haven't asked, you don't know — and you're guessing.
Transformation begins when leadership shifts from managing output to investing in people. Every industry with high turnover also has companies that defy the odds. What sets them apart? A culture built on trust, purpose and shared growth. This is available to every business, but only the ones willing to earn it.
Culture isn't cosmetic — it's core
Your company may be profitable. You might have strong external branding, marketing or even an award-winning product. But if your internal culture is weak, cracks will appear. Innovation will slow. Employee burnout will rise. Talent will leave — quietly or loudly — and reputation will suffer.
Culture isn't a feel-good initiative. It's a core business driver. And if you want to fix it, you need to start from the inside.
How to start your transformation
If your company culture needs a reset, here's how to begin:
Assess the reality
Use anonymous surveys, team interviews and 360-degree feedback to understand how people really feel. Consider bringing in a neutral third party to remove bias and uncover blind spots.Align leadership
If the executive team isn't fully aligned on values, goals and expectations, culture work will stall. Alignment creates consistency. Inconsistency breeds distrust.Rebuild trust through action
Employees don't trust what you say — they trust what you do. Small, visible actions that reflect new priorities will go further than a dozen all-hands meetings.Use the right tools
Personality and team dynamics tools like Myers-Briggs, DISC or AEM-Cube can help teams better understand how to collaborate and make decisions. But don't stop at labels. Use these insights to drive real change in how teams operate.
Culture change isn't a one-time fix
Transformation isn't a workshop. It's a commitment. Culture shifts require consistent reinforcement, not just big kickoff meetings. Just like you track revenue, leads and customer satisfaction, you should also track employee engagement, burnout risk and internal alignment.
Culture is a living system. Without regular check-ins and adjustments, it will drift, often in the wrong direction.
Your team comes before your customer
This may sound counterintuitive, but it's true: Happy, engaged employees build better businesses than stressed, replaceable ones. The companies that outperform in "high-turnover" industries invest in their people like they invest in their customers. They don't accept excuses. They create environments people want to stay in.
If your business is struggling with retention, morale or engagement, don't blame the industry. Look inward. Lead forward. And do the hard work of building the culture your team deserves.
