In the ABA and IDD space, we often treat staff turnover like a natural disaster—something unavoidable that just happens to us because of the market or the nature of the work. But Nate Beers, BCBA and host of the IDD Leader podcast, argues that retention isn't a roll of the dice; it is a direct reflection of how we support our frontline leaders. With over 20 years of experience, Nate has seen that while we promote people for their clinical excellence, we often leave them stranded when it comes to the actual human business of being a boss.

In this episode, Nate challenges the industry to move past the "doomsday" mindset and take radical ownership of the employee experience. He introduces the concept of "Burnover"—a toxic mix of burnout and turnover that occurs when a system prioritizes billable hours over rich social reinforcement. From the "math lesson" he learned in Thailand to the habits of agencies crushing the turnover game, Nate shares a practical framework for winning the hearts of your team and building a culture that people never want to leave.

In this conversation, Nate explores:

• Why supervisors—not the market or the pay rates—are the primary reason staff stay or go.
• The "cold culture" that happens when reinforcement vanishes and aversives take over.
• Shifting the paradigm to treat employment as a product that must be delivered excellently every single day.
• Why the first step to stability is having a leadership team that takes personal ownership of the data.
• How agencies have achieved exceptionally low turnover through competency-based onboarding and rich feedback loops.
• A fundamental lesson in motivation, rewards, and clear contingencies.

Ideas Worth Sharing

"It’s not usually one big change. It’s usually a hundred small changes. And I found that to be true as well when it comes to the issue of turnover, you start to make small changes and they start to pile up on top of each other." - Nate Beers

“We're selling the product of jobs. We need our delivery to be awesome so that we get the people that work there become fanatics.” - Nate Beers

“If you've won their hearts, everything else will follow just fine. Everything else is going to fall into place because the right kinds of decisions will get made.” - Nate Beers

“When a problem has no owner, it doesn't get fixed.” - Nate Beers

Resources Mentioned

• Connect with Nate Beers
• [Free Tool] Burnout/Burnover Assessment
• The IDD Leader Podcast
• Books Recommended by Nate:
  • The 5 Levels of Leadership – John Maxwell
  • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni
  • Boundaries – Dr. Henry Cloud
  • Bringing Out the Best in People – Aubrey Daniels

Stop fighting workforce challenges. Start outsmarting them. Join us at the ABA C.A.R.E.S. Summit and transform how you lead, staff, and grow your organization.

Register today at https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/abacares2026/home

Every field has a story about why people leave. In ABA, we often point to burnout, productivity pressure, or not enough “buy-in” from staff. And those things are real. But according to Organizational Behavior Management expert Dr. Manny Rodriguez, they’re rarely the root cause.

With over 20 years of experience guiding leaders across Fortune 500 companies, startups, schools, and human service organizations, Manny has seen this pattern repeat itself over and over again. Turnover, disengagement, and leadership fatigue are not personal failures. They are predictable outcomes of poorly designed systems.

In this episode, Manny breaks down why organizations keep treating workforce issues like motivation problems instead of design problems, how leadership behavior is shaped by the systems around it, and what it actually looks like to build environments where people can succeed without burning out.

Drawing from his work as Director of Strategic Growth at Puzzle Box Academy and his decades in OBM, Manny walks through how small system changes can create meaningful shifts in staff behavior, supervisor capacity, and organizational stability.

In this conversation, Manny explores:

• Why most retention issues are systems problems, not people problems
• How organizational design unintentionally reinforces burnout and avoidance
• What leaders often misunderstand about motivation and accountability
• Why overwhelmed supervisors are a signal of system failure, not weakness
• How to identify which behaviors your systems are really reinforcing
• What “making work easier” actually looks like through an OBM lens
• How values break down when systems punish ethical or effective behavior
• Why sustainable change starts with redesigning conditions, not demanding more effort

Ideas Worth Sharing

“A leader is one that spends time with their people and helps them, mentors them, shapes them for growth.” – Dr. Manny Rodriguez

“Never underestimate the power of social reinforcement.” – Dr. Manny Rodriguez

"If you have a supervisor who doesn't know where those limits are, it's not the supervisor's fault... the organization did something wrong, meaning they did not arm that supervisor with the proper, clear expectations." – Dr. Manny Rodriguez

“Any day that goes by, any week that goes by, if you haven't spoken to your staff member, if you haven't spoken to your colleague or to your boss, something's already missed.” – Dr. Manny Rodriguez

Resources Mentioned

• Connect with Manny
• OBM Applied!
• Quick Wins!
• Organizational Behavior Management: A Practitioner’s Guide
• Measure of a Leader

Stop fighting workforce challenges. Start outsmarting them. Join us at the ABA C.A.R.E.S. Summit and transform how you lead, staff, and grow your organization.

Register today at https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/abacares2026/home

Every generation thinks the one behind it doesn’t want to work. But what if the real issue isn’t work ethic at all?

In this episode, leadership researcher, author, and founder of Boss Hero School Joe Mull examines what truly fuels commitment in the workplace—and why turnover, call-offs, and disengagement are almost always symptoms of broken systems, not broken people.

Listen in as Joe shares the research behind his “Employalty” framework, the three conditions that must exist for commitment to thrive, and what leaders need to stop doing if they want people to stay, grow, and give their best.

In this conversation, Joe breaks down:

• Why “no one wants to work” is one of the most persistent workplace myths in history.
• The sociological pattern behind generational blame.
• The three conditions where commitment naturally forms.
• How attendance and call-off problems are driven by belief systems (not laziness).
• The difference between accountability and punishment in behavior change.
• Why collaboration builds stronger policies than top-down mandates.
• The two questions that transform organizations into destination workplaces.
• How language frameworks unlock better retention conversations.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “People do a great job when they believe they have a great job.” - Joe Mull
• “Commitment appears when employees are in their ideal job doing meaningful work for a great boss.” - Joe Mull
• “If working for you negatively impacts what's most important to them, you've got no shot at retaining that employee.” - Joe Mull

Resources mentioned:

• Boss Hero School
• Boss Better Now Podcast
• Employalty: How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work by Joe Mull
• Other books by Joe: Cure for the Common Leader | No More Team Drama

About the Guest

Joe Mull is a leadership researcher, speaker, and author focused on building healthier, more committed workplaces. He is the founder of Boss Hero School, creator of the Employalty framework, and host of the Boss Better Now podcast. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Harvard Business Review. In 2025, he was inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame—an honor reserved for less than 1% of speakers worldwide.

Connect with Joe: Website | LinkedIn

Connect with Holli: Website | Linkedin

If today’s conversation sparked ideas for how to fix your own people systems, don’t stop here. Follow The People Contingency wherever you listen. And if you know a leader who’s tired of burnout and turnover, share this episode with them. The more of us building retention-first systems, the stronger our field becomes.

Stop fighting workforce challenges. Start outsmarting them. Join us at the ABA C.A.R.E.S. Summit and transform how you lead, staff, and grow your organization.

Register today at https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/abacares2026/home