Thoughts on Leadership – New Bern Live

Thursday Thoughts on Leadership
May 29, 2025
By Denis Conner
Reduce the churn. Increase the fruit. 
After cutting my teeth in the freight business as a Line Haul Dispatcher at Thurston Motor Lines in Charlotte, I took a similar position at Standard Trucking Company, a quarter mile away, in March 1985. Ten weeks after going to work there, I told my boss I could not function on a split schedule that had me working days on the weekends and the graveyard third in the middle of each week. His immediate response was, “Dennis, are you telling me you want to quit?” I walked out the door that day, unsure what to do next, but sure I had had enough of the trucking business.
Responding to a newspaper ad (it was 1985, remember?) promising career growth opportunities managing convenience stores for a growing chain, I went to work for Fast Fare in Charlotte. Signing on as a Management Trainee, I anticipated learning how to grow sales and revenue for a store and effectively manage the small staff of hourly workers each store employed. I soon discovered that the reality didn’t deliver on the promises. 
Fast Fare offered regular full-time and part-time hourly employees a 25¢/hour shift premium for working between 11 PM and 7 AM. Management Trainees were not paid that shift premium because we were “exempt” salaried employees. We were also paid what was commonly called “Chinese overtime.” Now referred to as a “fluctuating workweek,” it involved being paid half-time for hours over 40. Work more. Get paid less for those additional hours. The Management Trainees at Fast Fare worked the “dark third” so the company didn’t have to pay us the premium. We also worked 70-80 hours each week, lowering labor costs for Fast Fare. 
For 40 years, I’ve referred to that experience as “doing time” in a convenience store. None of us who started together lasted more than a couple of months. 
As I listened to an episode of the Harvard Business Review’s HBR on Leadership podcast recently, my experiences with Fast Fare and Standard Trucking Company were recalled from the recesses of my memory. I’ve linked the episode below if you want to listen or read the transcript. 
The episode title, “Why Your Frontline Employee Turnover Is High,” caught my eye and ignited my curiosity. In addition to my experiences at Fast Fare and Standard Trucking Company, I recalled one month in 1990 when Builders Transport’s driver turnover was a staggering 342%. As a Terminal Manager at the time, most of my days were invested in trying to find, recruit, and hire truck drivers. Company-wide, we had to hire more than four drivers to get one. With recruitment costs of $3500-$4000 for each driver he hired, you can understand why the company was bleeding cash. 
Whether we lead a church as the only paid employee or own a small business with dozens of employees, turnover hinders our efforts and hurts our bottom line. While the financial cost may not be significant with volunteer turnover, the cost to the mission and momentum can be substantial and even malignant. 
The HBR on Leadership episode revealed one significant principle that helps us lead volunteers or employees more effectively and reduce turnover. 
Knowing why will help us understand how. Joseph Fuller and Manjari Raman, the guests discussing their research and an article they wrote, note the chasm between the way corporate executives think of the turnover among the workers at the lowest box on the org chart and how the employees who leave see it. They note that managers assume most of these front-line workers, typically low-wage earners, quit because they have found a job that offers more money per hour or the opportunity to earn more by working more hours. Yet, only 40% of those who quit said it was even one consideration in their decision. 
In many cases, employees’ decisions to leave a job were influenced by transportation needs, schedule concerns, or uncertainty about their employer’s financial stability. Corporate executives may have never had a life experience where they or their parents had to concern themselves with transportation or schedule flexibility. Those making decisions that contribute to the turnover lack the context to understand the needs of their employees. 
In worse cases, Raman notes, “few companies think about what is happening to the lives of their workers outside the company.” The result is objectifying humans for their mere function to the employer. 
Sadly, even ministry leaders can fall into that trap of objectifying the volunteers we lead. So, how can we avoid that temptation and the resulting churn of turnover that results?
Consider how you can invest time in getting to know the people who volunteer in the church you lead. What are their interests beyond their work in your company or their volunteer role in the church you lead? Are there others with similar hobbies? What other common connections are there among the volunteers or workers you lead? How can you cultivate those connections to create a web of “stickiness” between your employees or volunteers? How can you create opportunities to listen to those you lead and learn about their lives? If you tend to talk while others listen, who can help you develop listening skills? 
Getting a holistic view of the lives of those we lead is the treasure chest that holds the answers to reducing the churn in our staff or volunteers. The result is increasing the company’s profits or the missional effectiveness of the church or nonprofit we lead. 
Enjoy your weekend. 
https://hbr.org/podcast/2025/04/why-your-frontline-employee-turnover-is-high 
The views and opinions expressed in my Thursday Thoughts on Leadership are my own. They do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina or any affiliated churches.

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