How a $5,000 Turnover Cost Sparked a New Approach to Talent for One McDonald’s Facilities Leader

Turnover isn't strictly an HR issue. It's an operational threat that drains time, money, and stability from the business. When a skilled employee leaves, productivity slips, costs rise, and systems slow down. In facilities management, where consistency keeps everything running, the smartest leaders are building their strategies around one goal: preventing that loss before it happens.

This strategy is the work of Eric Culton, Director of Multi-Unit Operations, P&L Leadership, Business Strategy who oversees a $30M+ portfolio of five McDonald's restaurants in the Pacific Northwest. Culton has built his leadership philosophy on one principle: people drive performance. His approach turns turnover from an unavoidable expense into a solvable business problem, showing how retention can be engineered with the same precision as any operational system.

"We ran an internal study to understand what turnover really costs us. For a facilities technician, it’s about $5,000 when you factor in training, onboarding, and the time it takes to get someone up to speed. Every time we lose one, we’re not just losing a person. We’re losing time, expertise, and $5,000 we’ve already invested. When you look at it that way, it makes far more sense to focus on developing and retaining the people who actually want to stay," says Culton. That single $5,000 figure is a wake-up call that every lost technician leaves a measurable hole in the operation.

• The homegrown advantage: "It's more expensive to bring in people externally," Culton explains. "If we get a candidate that comes in with great experience, I'm not going to say no, but it's hard to come across people who are looking to join long-term, who aren't demanding top dollar, and who understand our company values." Culton’s preference for internal talent aligns with research suggesting that promotion is a more effective retention strategy than hiring from a competitive market, where a lack of cultural fit often leads to early exits.

His approach is built on a simple premise: you can teach skills, but you can’t teach someone to care. That principle shapes the core of the organization’s talent strategy. For his operation, where many long-tenured employees have been with the company for over a decade, building talent from within is the most financially sound decision.

• Attitude over aptitude: "The first thing we look for is people who show up. Do they show up on time? Do they put in the effort? Are they motivated? Do they go above and beyond? It’s those small things that stand out. You can see when someone cares, and that’s what we look for first. The skill can come later, but that attitude has to be there from the start," says Culton. Recognizing and nurturing these traits from day one is the key to retaining promising new hires.

Culton operationalizes this "hire for attitude" philosophy by combining McDonald's famous systems with a human-centric coaching culture. The goal is to create an environment where employees hired for their character choose to stay for the culture. He balances rigid structure with "constant check-ins" to ask what barriers his team members are facing. "That personal connection is important," he notes. His "we're in it together" approach, which shows that no one is left to figure things out on their own, aligns with modern management theories that emphasize managers as coaches who actively develop and support their teams.

He points to third-party vendors as a cautionary tale, observing that they often experience high turnover after promoting their best technician. His organization circumvents this by identifying the specific behaviors and skill sets required for leadership.

• Best worker, worst manager?: "Your best worker isn’t always your best manager," Culton says. "Once we’ve defined the leadership behaviors we’re looking for, we measure performance against them through structured feedback in monthly and quarterly reviews. They get clear, honest input so they always know where they stand and what it takes to move forward."

• Eliminating bad days: Culton motivates his leaders to adopt a coaching mindset by appealing to something simple: their own success. When managers invest in their teams, everyone benefits, he explains. "Adopting a coaching mindset helps our managers reach their own goals. If they make their team stronger, their job becomes easier. My goal is to eliminate all bad days, or have as few as possible. The more they develop their people, the more good days they can string together."

• Commitment cornerstone: "If they understand that you're willing to do anything you can to help their day out, they'll run through a wall for you," he continues. "The way to sustain it is through constant one-on-one conversations. I make a point to meet with my managers once a week, and we protect that time. It's all about protecting those routines, because when they know I am committing that time, they trust that I'm showing up for them."

Culton notes this is an industry-wide problem, pointing out that even a global giant like Coca-Cola is "having a very hard time retaining people" amid the country's skilled trades gap. For him, the uncertainty only reinforces his belief that the first step is to "identify who is worth the investment of time and money to train and develop." When you do that, they stick around and become a long-term employee. "That's worth its weight in gold," he says.

In the end, the impact of Culton’s strategy extends beyond saving his company money. By putting a hard number on the cost of turnover, he has inadvertently put a hard number on the value of a happy, well-trained employee. The bottom line is that keeping a sound technician is transformed from a "nice-to-have" into a core financial imperative. Losing one creates a $5,000 hole the company has to fill, a reality that gives skilled professionals more leverage than they might think.