What a warehouse loses when an employee leaves
A departure costs more than an advert: the vacancy, mentor time, learning period and mistakes can exceed a month's pay; count it.
When a warehouse employee leaves, the manager usually sees two things: an empty position and the need to place an advert. The real cost is much wider, because most of it does not appear in reports. With the person goes the knowledge of locations, of customers' habits and of how to pick awkward loads. The newcomer works slowly for several weeks and makes mistakes. In this article we show the price of staff turnover with a simple calculation and look at practical ways to reduce it.
The visible and invisible cost of a departure
The visible part is small: the advert, interviews, paperwork. The invisible part is far larger:
- while the position is empty, the work falls on others or is delayed;
- training the newcomer takes working time from an experienced employee;
- during the learning period productivity is lower and mistakes are more frequent;
- the remaining staff grow more tired, which prepares the ground for the next departure.
The calculation: what one departure costs
An example, with illustrative figures. Let a picker's pay, including taxes, be 5 million so'm a month, or about 1.2 million so'm a week. We count the costs:
- two weeks of vacancy: about 2.5 million so'm because of overtime and delayed orders;
- hiring: 10 hours of the manager's time for the advert, interviews and paperwork, at 40,000 so'm an hour, 400,000 so'm;
- mentor: 20 hours of an experienced employee, at 30,000 so'm an hour, 600,000 so'm;
- learning period: if productivity averages 65 percent over six weeks, the loss is 6 × 1.2 million × 0.35 ≈ 2.5 million so'm;
- mistakes: correcting wrongly picked orders and dealing with the customer, about 1 million so'm.
The total is roughly 7 million so'm, which is 1.4 times the monthly pay. Your figures will differ, but the method is the same: convert the invisible part into hours and so'm, and a departure stops looking cheap. Make the same calculation for other positions: when a receiver or the deputy warehouse manager leaves, the invisible part is considerably larger.
Why people leave
Do not guess the reasons; ask. Frequent reasons in a warehouse are unclear rules and tasks that change every day, vague pay for evening and night shifts, heavy or dangerous conditions, no prospect of growth, trouble with a supervisor, and unfair distribution of work. Often the reason is not pay. A raise helps, but clear plans, a fair shift schedule and safe conditions matter just as much. A conversation with someone who is leaving is useful, but there is a more useful move: ask a current employee after 30 and after 90 days, "What keeps you here? What gets in your way?" Collect the answers in one table. After three or four months the repeating reasons become visible on their own.
Protecting knowledge from walking out
The main risk is not that a person leaves but that their knowledge leaves with them. Three things help: a one-page instruction for every important operation, an arrangement in which at least two people can work at each station, and a 30-day learning plan for newcomers. Write the instruction together with the person doing the job: they know best which step is unclear. The warehouse manager should know which duties only one person performs, because those are the most dangerous points. List them and name a backup for each. Really train the person you name: a name on paper does not help.
What to track
Simple indicators are enough: the share of people who leave in the first 90 days, average length of service by position, and a list of reasons for leaving. You set the threshold yourself; what matters is that the figure exists and is reviewed every quarter. If departures repeat in one position or one shift, the problem may lie not in the people but in the conditions or management of that place. Then fixing the place is cheaper than searching for new people.
Conclusion
A departure costs more than the person's pay, but that cost can be counted and reduced. The OmborExpert specialists assess warehouse processes and help set up instructions, a training routine and a working rhythm.