Contractor attrition cut by 60%
Diagnosed a recruiting bottleneck that was driving churn, then built a risk-assessment framework to catch it before it reached the schedule.
Attrition down 60%
The knot
Attrition on a 100+ contractor team costs more than it looks like on paper. Every departure means recruiting again, ramp-up time, a coverage gap while the replacement learns the work, and a schedule that’s a little less stable than it was. The account treated it as a retention problem and looked for ways to keep people longer.
What I did
- Traced departures back through the pipeline and found that a large share of the churn was being decided at recruiting, not later.
- Built a risk-assessment framework that flags exposure early, before it becomes an uncovered shift.
- Changed hiring and onboarding around it. Over the years I’ve hired, onboarded and trained 100+ people, and the onboarding program I designed for this account became the basis for company-wide policy.
What changed
Contractor attrition dropped 60%.
Ramp-up costs came down with it, and the schedule stopped needing weekly repairs.
What I’d tell someone doing the same
Look at where in the pipeline people are being lost before spending on retention. A bottleneck at intake shows up months later as churn, and it’s cheaper to fix at the source.