According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, annual turnover in manufacturing runs between 26% and 28%. In warehousing and distribution, it approaches 49%. Both figures sit well above the national average. Companies respond with retention programs, better pay and improved onboarding, and while those efforts can help, most only address the problem after it’s already begun.

High turnover in supply chain is largely a hiring problem. The decisions made before someone starts — who gets recruited, how the role is defined, what candidates are told and who ultimately gets hired — carry more weight as to whether that person stays than anything that happens after day one.

Most supply chain organizations incorrectly treat recruiting and retention as separate functions. Yet it’s the quality of the hire that determines the outcome of the retention effort.

Three hiring failures drive the majority of early exits in supply chain:

Wrong skills. Job descriptions accumulate requirements over time. A mid-level planning role ends up listing every enterprise resource planning system, multiple certifications and years of experience that have no bearing on what the job actually involves. The result is either an overqualified hire who leaves once something better opens up, or an underqualified hire who struggles and exits within the year.

Wrong fit. Most interviews focus on past experience and technical knowledge. They rarely surface whether a candidate's working style, tolerance for ambiguity or preference for autonomy aligns with the actual environment they’re walking into. A high performer from a structured Fortune 500 supply chain will often fail in a lean, fast-moving operation that requires building from scratch and influencing without formal authority.

Wrong expectations. Roles get oversold. Hiring managers frame opportunities around future potential rather than current reality. Challenges get minimized. A candidate accepts a role expecting to lead a sales and operations planning redesign and spends the first year maintaining spreadsheets while the roadmap gets figured out. That gap between the pitch and the reality is one of the most consistent drivers of first-year exits.

The pattern across all three failures is the same: Companies rush to fill a seat rather than taking the time to define and find the right person. Urgency produces bad hires, bad hires produce turnover, turnover produces more urgency, and the cycle repeats.

Fixing this requires more discipline in the right places, earlier in the process, by doing the following:

Start with role clarity before anything else. The most common hiring mistake in supply chain happens before a job description is written. The role is ambiguous internally, and that ambiguity carries through every stage of the search.

Before posting any role, the hiring team should align on the fundamentals:

• What does this person need to accomplish in their first 90 days, six months, and first year?
• What does success look like at the 12-month mark?
• Which skills are genuinely required on day one versus developable over time?

Build requirements from the actual scope of work. A requirement no one can articulate a reason for doesn’t belong in the posting.

Align stakeholders before the search begins.This is one of the most common points of failure in supply chain hiring. The hiring manager, department head, HR and direct team all have different ideas about what the role needs to be, and those conversations rarely happen until a candidate is already in front of them.

This misalignment creates inconsistent interview feedback, shifting requirements mid-search, and delayed decisions that cost the team its strongest candidates. Before sourcing begins:

• Agree on the three to five outcomes that define success in the role;
• Confirm what experience level is genuinely required versus preferred;
• Align on the non-negotiables around technical skills, environment fit and working style, and
• Decide in advance who has final authority on the hire.

When stakeholders are aligned before the search begins, the process moves faster and produces stronger decisions.

Write a job description built around outcomes. One that reflects what the role actually requires attracts the right candidates and sets expectations before the first conversation happens.

Effective supply chain job descriptions do three things:

• Lead with the impact the role is expected to have;
• Specify the technical environment clearly — the systems, the scale and the complexity level, and
• Distinguish between what’s required on day one and what will be developed over time.

This also means being honest about what the role involves at the current stage. If it’s a build role in an early-stage function, say that. If the transformation is still 18 months away, say that too. Candidates who understand the real scope and still want the role are the ones who stay.

Look beyond the active candidate pool. Most supply chain hiring pulls from the same pool: people who are actively looking, recently laid off, or circulating between similar roles. That pool is visible and easy to reach. It also tends to produce higher turnover hires.

Passive candidates represent a different talent segment entirely. These are practitioners who are currently employed, performing well and not scanning job boards. They have to be found and approached based on a specific fit profile.

The retention advantage is structural. A passive candidate who engages with an opportunity has done so deliberately. They evaluated the role against their current situation and chose to move. That intentionality tends to produce a fundamentally different quality of hire than someone who applied because they were available.

Reaching this segment requires direct outreach through professional networks, referrals from within the industry, and relationships built before a vacancy exists. It takes more time upfront and consistently produces stronger outcomes.

Invest in the hire after the offer. Retention begins with what’s promised during the process, and whether the organization follows through.

The supply chain professionals most likely to stay long term are those who can see a defined path forward. That means giving new hires:

• A development plan in the first 30 days that maps their growth over the next 12 to 18 months;
• Access to training that builds the technical and leadership capability the role will require as it evolves;
• Visibility into where the role can go — adjacent opportunities, expanded scope, or advancement within the function, and
• Regular check-ins from the manager in the first 90 days focused on growth and fit.

Supply chain talent is being actively recruited at all times. The organizations that retain strong performers are building environments where practitioners can see a future and are invested in reaching it.

The companies with the lowest first-year turnover in supply chain are spending more time and discipline on the front end of the hiring process. Role clarity, stakeholder alignment, honest recruiting and genuine investment in development are execution problems. And fixing them upstream is significantly less expensive than replacing people on the back end.

Friddy Hoegener is co-founder and head of recruiting at SCOPE Recruiting.