15 Employee Retention Strategies to Help You Retain Critical Talent

While the job market has recently favored employers in most industries, every organization has talent they can’t afford to lose—whether it’s a top performer in a critical role or someone with skills and knowledge that are tough to replace. Retention is a top three priority for CEOs in 2025, with 57% saying it’s critical to engage and retain existing employees.

When a key player leaves the organization, HR and affected teams are often left scrambling. Exit interviews may unearth valuable feedback, but at that point—it’s too little, too late. And there’s opportunity to intervene earlier. 62% of employees say they discussed their decision to leave with a manager or coworker prior to leaving.

You need proactive employee retention strategies to identify flight risks among key talent before they turn into resignations. That means having the tools to spot early warning signs, act fast and with context, and make retention a shared responsibility across the organization.

When you combine predictive employee retention analytics with ongoing employee feedback and actionable insights, you can stay ahead of turnover and build a culture that keeps your best people engaged and excited to stay.

 

 

What is employee retention?

Employee retention is an organization’s ability to keep their talent and reduce turnover. It’s a vital piece of talent management and a significant factor in driving business success. This metric is represented as the percentage of employees who decide to stay at their organization within a given time period. 

It’s crucial to distinguish between regrettable turnover and strategic turnover.

Regrettable turnover happens when high-performing employees or those in key roles leave, often for reasons that could have been avoided. Losing valuable team members like these can be costly and shake up teams, customer relationships, and business performance. 

Strategic turnover can work in favor of the organization. This type involves the exit of underperforming or misaligned employees, opening the door for new talent and fresh ideas. 

Your retention rate can be a true indicator of business success. When employees are engaged, motivated, and committed to your organization, they’re likely to have a positive impact on the business. Leaders who want to drive results, now and in the future, need to improve their employee retention practices.

 

Why employee retention is important

Employee retention is critical to business success. When top performers walk out the door, they take critical knowledge with them. The team they leave behind can feel unmoored—less productive, less confident, and stretched too thin. As the role sits unfilled, productivity drops and pressure builds. It’s a recipe for burnout—and more turnover down the line.

Moreover, it’s costly to replace a departing employee. The cost to replace an individual employee can range anywhere from one half to two times the employee’s annual salary. The recruiting, onboarding, and training costs associated with hiring new talent is outright expensive. 

 

 

5 step plan for retaining top talent

1. Launch a continuous employee listening program.

Start by creating a solid employee listening strategy that collects feedback from various touch points, including engagement surveys, pulse surveys, lifecycle surveys, and casual 1-on-1 conversations.

This ongoing flow of employee feedback paints a vivid picture of the employee experience and helps spot retention risks before they become major issues.

2. Implement predictive analytics for talent retention.

The research shows that a lot of regrettable turnover is in fact preventable—1 in 3 employees that leave their organization say their departure was preventable.

Use employee retention analytics to forecast flight risks within your workforce with precision. Predictive analytics help you dive deep into employee data—like feedback, tenure, and performance—to spot who’s most likely to leave and the reasons behind it.

With these insights in hand, it’s possible to take focused action and prevent regrettable turnover before it happens.

“Retention isn’t just something that happens to organizations—it’s something you can get ahead of. Too many leaders think turnover is inevitable. But the data is always there—declining engagement, absenteeism, reduced participation. The organizations that are winning are the ones who see the signals, trust the data, and take action before it’s a crisis.”

💡 Todd Pernicek, Senior Insights Analyst at Quantum Workplace

 

3. Frequently review employee retention data and insights. 

Once you have employee retention analytics in place, take a deep dive into how well your organization keeps its talent. With easy-to-use dashboards and reports, you can regularly check out trends, focus on specific teams or groups of employees, and spot areas that might need extra care. These insights aren’t just numbers. They’re your roadmap to building a better retention strategy.

“Some employees leave, and it doesn’t impact the business much. Others leave, and you feel the pain immediately—lost knowledge, disrupted workflows, lower morale. The organizations that retain their best people aren’t guessing at who matters most. They’re using performance data, engagement insights, and tenure trends to identify their most critical talent and proactively work to keep them.” 

💡 Meghan Freeman, Product Manager at Quantum Workplace

 

 

4. Develop targeted retention programs based on employee feedback and insights.

Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to retention. Instead, gather quantitative and qualitative feedback to identify what drives turnover in different workforce segments. With these insights, create tailored retention programs and initiatives that directly tackle those drivers, ensuring a more substantial impact.

Quantum Workplace research has identified three significant factors that contribute to retention risk:

1. Sense of belonging. Do employees feel accepted, respected, and psychologically safe within their teams?

2. Growth and opportunity. Do employees see a clear path forward, whether through career advancement, skill-building, or recognition for their contributions?

3. Connection to the organization. Do employees believe in the company’s culture and advocate for it as a great workplace?

5. Share key insights with team leaders—and hold them accountable.

HR can’t do it all when it comes to keeping talent on board. Empowering team leaders with the same retention analytics and employee feedback is important. They should take action and be held accountable. Coaching can help them create action plans that make a difference. Regularly checking in on their progress can show how they’re tackling turnover risks.

“Managers own retention. They’re the ones having daily interactions, building relationships, and shaping whether an employee feels valued, supported, and heard. But if we don’t equip them with the right tools and data, how can we expect them to act? Retention strategies fail when they take too long to implement. You have to move fast, get the right insights in front of the right people, and make retention everyone’s responsibility.” 💡 Todd Pernicek, Senior Insights Analyst at Quantum Workplace

 

 

15 Employee Retention Strategies

While employee retention may seem difficult to understand and navigate. There are strategies that can help. Leverage these top strategies in your approach to employee retention.

1. Make smart hiring decisions

Hiring the right people is more difficult than it sounds. Leaders should not only assess whether candidates are a good fit in terms of skill set and experience, but they should also consider personality and values. 

If the talent you hire doesn’t align with your mission or culture, it will be difficult to keep them from leaving. Your employees should be contributing to a purpose they care about on a day-to-day basis, or you risk burnout and turnover. 

2. Enhance your onboarding process

Your onboarding process should: 

• Set employees up for success
• Clarify expectations
• Outline company culture and norms
• Explain policies and procedures. 

Employees should be introduced to others outside of their team and be given an outlet to ask questions when they arise.

This process can take up to a year to ensure your employees are fully immersed and comfortable with the organization. But a strong onboarding plan can help employees feel connected faster—which decreases their likelihood to second guess their decision to join your organization. 

3. Provide competitive pay

Let’s face it, if you can’t offer fair, competitive pay that’s on par with industry benchmarks, your ability to attract and retain top talent is weakened. Employees need to be appreciated for their work, and a big part of that is compensation. 

If your employees are putting in full effort but feel like their pay is lacking, they’re likely to burn out and look for opportunities elsewhere. 

4. Provide desirable benefits

Perks are another way, outside of compensation, to show your appreciation for employees and get them to stay. Almost one-fifth of employees say they would stay at their organization if they offered better benefits. 

To stay ahead of the curve, the best organizations are providing unique benefits that better support their employees in a new world of work. Mental health stipends, paid parental leave, paid volunteer time, and technology reimbursement are great benefits that make employees feel valued, supported, cared for, and less likely to look elsewhere. 

5. Communicate openly and often

Employees want and need to be in the know in order to feel connected and to do their jobs well. Managers should regularly connect with employees to address roadblocks, answer questions, and discuss future career goals. Senior leaders should regularly share vision, goals, and progress, and communicate effectively before, during, and after change.

6. Outline opportunities for growth and development

Lack of growth and advancement is the #1 reason employees leave their organizations. If employees feel stagnant in their role, they may feel restless and dissatisfied. 

Give employees ample opportunity to build upon their skills through stretch assignments, cross-training, and seminars. Leverage regular growth conversations to outline a clear path to advancement and outline learning opportunities and actively prevent turnover. 

7. Provide recognition where it’s due

Recognition helps employees feel appreciated and valued for their efforts. If an employee goes above and beyond, and doesn’t receive recognition, they may lack motivation to keep up the hard work. Your employees need validation. Without it, feelings of low engagement may surface that can lead to turnover.

8. Offer flexibility in where—and how—employees work

Organizations that are competitive in attracting and retaining employees give their talent a strong sense of autonomy. While providing remote and hybrid options has become increasingly necessary in the modern workplace, that’s often not enough. 

In today’s climate, employees need to be able to decide how they work. Micromanaging should be avoided. Trust should be the default. And creativity in how work gets done should be applied. If employees consistently perform well, they should be given the freedom to decide how they get their work done when possible. 

9. Create a culture of employee listening

Employee listening should be an ongoing process within your organization. The insights that employees have can give you the tools to take strategic, evidence-based action and improve the employee experience. Gathering employee perceptions is a win-win situation. When you take meaningful action, employees feel heard and your business grows. 

 

10. Adapt your approach to performance management

The annual performance review isn’t enough. Disjointed and disengaging performance management practices actively drive disconnection and turnover. Employees need aligned goals and ongoing coaching, feedback, and recognition to stay connected and perform their best. It should be crystal clear to employees how their performance is measured and they should be an active partner in discussing and improving their own performance.

11. Promote collaboration and teamwork

Collaboration and teamwork is key to a healthy work environment. Teamwork increases productivity and helps shape valuable workplace relationships. But in a world of remote and hybrid work, many leaders still don’t understand how to promote collaboration when face-to-face interaction isn’t a possibility. 

By setting aligned, collaborative goals, leveraging regular video chats, and creating designated communication channels, your remote employees will have no problem working as a team to drive the outcomes that matter. The relationships formed as a result of collaboration will keep your employees at the organization for the long haul. 

12. Prioritize DE&I

Diversity, equity, and inclusion has become an expectation in the workplace. Leaders should always be thinking of ways to make the workplace more inclusive by eliminating bias and barriers to diversity. Leaders need to view employees on an individual level and create a work environment that supports everyone’s unique needs. 

Constant communication around DE&I, with each employee, will help you understand where your efforts are lacking. And when you take action to promote inclusion, employee well-being improves and innovative business results come to the surface. As employees feel seen and included, they’ll have more initiative to stay.  

13. Handle change effectively

As most leaders know, the workplace is changing at a pace not seen in recent times. And to retain employees, change needs to be navigated effectively and openly. Quantum Workplace research shows that 40% of employees have considered leaving their job due changes in the organization, and 60% had coworkers who quit due to change.

To boost retention, leaders should leverage open, regular communication around change so that employees know why it’s happening. When your workforce feels like change is swept under the rug, they are likely to feel a sense of disconnection from the organization and you’ll risk turnover.  

14. Administer two-way feedback

Feedback should go both ways. When only managers provide feedback, it’s easy for employees to feel defensive or inadequate. 

To create a foundation of trust, managers should ask for and welcome employee feedback. This way, they can uncover areas of improvement for themselves and grow in their role. And employees will be more likely to accept and implement manager feedback. 

The connection and growth that both parties will experience as a result of two-way feedback is likely to engage and retain employees. 

15. Leverage exit surveys 

Exit surveys help leaders understand the reasons that employees leave. This way, they can use evidence-based data to take strategic action toward retention. But leaders need to ask the right questions.

Some sample exit survey questions include “Why did you choose to leave this company?” and “What do you value about this company?”  Your questions should give you insight into areas of improvement within the employee experience.

Plus, leaders can use these surveys as benchmarks to uncover which existing employees are at risk for leaving to prevent turnover before it’s too late. 

 

Sample employee retention plans

An effective employee retention plan should have the following key elements:

• Key insight: who is at risk of turnover?
• Context: why are they at risk?
• Action steps: what will we do to try to prevent turnover?
• Timeline & ownership: who will do what, by when?

Lack of growth & development

Key insight

Employees in the marketing department, especially those with 2-5 years of tenure, are showing a 30% higher risk of turnover compared to other departments. They cite a lack of growth opportunities as a major factor.

Context

Engagement surveys reveal that employees in the marketing department rate “career development opportunities” 25% lower than the company average. Survey comments highlight concerns like: “I feel stuck in my role with no clear path for advancement” and “There is no transparency about how to grow into a leadership position.”

Action steps

• Personalized Development Plans: Create individualized career development plans for each employee, clearly outlining potential career paths and opportunities for advancement within the marketing department.
• Leadership Training: Introduce a formal leadership development program for mid-level employees who show potential for management roles.
• Cross-Department Collaboration: Offer employees the chance to rotate through different marketing functions (e.g., social media, content creation, analytics) to expand their skills and provide new challenges.
• Regular Check-Ins: Implement quarterly one-on-one career development check-ins between employees and their managers to assess progress and provide guidance.

Timeline & ownership

• Develop and roll out within 2 months — HR Manager & Marketing Department Heads
• Design and implement the program within 3 months — Learning & Development Team
• Start offering job rotations in 1 month, with ongoing adjustments — Marketing Department Heads
• Implement immediately, with quarterly evaluations — Managers & HR Manager

Low trust in leadership

Key insight

Employees in the IT department are showing a 40% higher risk of turnover due to decreased trust in leadership following recent organizational changes.

Context

Recent surveys and feedback indicate a 35% drop in “trust in leadership” among IT employees. Employees cited confusion over the direction of the department following recent restructuring and unclear communication from senior leadership. Comments include: “Leadership has been vague about the changes,” and “I don’t know where the department is headed anymore.”

Action steps

• Transparent Communication: Implement regular town hall meetings (at least bi-monthly) where leadership can directly communicate upcoming changes, departmental goals, and future visions for the company.
• Feedback Loops: Establish anonymous feedback channels where employees can voice concerns or suggestions related to the changes and leadership. Ensure leadership actively addresses these concerns during team meetings.
• Leadership Visibility: Senior leaders in the IT department should have monthly office hours, offering employees the opportunity to have informal, one-on-one conversations to foster trust and transparency.
• Change Management Workshops: Provide training for leadership on effective communication during times of change, including how to listen actively and address employee concerns empathetically.

Timeline & ownership

• Implement town halls in 1 month, with bi-monthly sessions ongoing — Senior Leadership Team

• Set up feedback channels in 2 weeks, with ongoing responses from leadership — HR Team & IT Leadership

• Begin monthly office hours within 1 month — IT Department Heads & Senior Leaders

• Launch training within 2 months — HR & L&D Team

 

Low manager effectiveness / team dynamics

Key insight

Employees in the customer service department are showing 25% higher turnover risk, particularly in teams with managers who have received low ratings for team leadership and communication skills.

Context

Engagement surveys indicate that 40% of customer service employees report dissatisfaction with “relationship with manager” and “team collaboration.”

Survey comments cite: “My manager doesn’t communicate clearly about expectations” and “There’s a lack of support from my manager when I need help.” Additionally, performance reviews reveal that managers in these teams are consistently rated low on leadership skills.

Action steps

• Manager Training: Implement a mandatory leadership training program focused on communication, team dynamics, and conflict resolution for all customer service managers.
• Team Dynamics Workshops: Conduct quarterly team-building workshops to strengthen collaboration and improve communication within teams. Focus on fostering a culture of open dialogue and mutual respect.
• Regular Feedback for Managers: Create a process where employees can provide anonymous feedback on their managers quarterly. This feedback should be reviewed by HR and addressed by leadership in one-on-one meetings with managers.
• Mentoring for Managers: Pair low-rated managers with high-performing senior leaders in other departments for mentoring and coaching on team leadership skills.

Timeline & ownership

• Develop and implement training within 2 months — HR Manager & L&D Team
  
  
• Schedule and host workshops within 1 month, then quarterly thereafter — Customer Service Leadership Team & HR
  
  
• Roll out feedback process within 1 month, with quarterly reviews — HR Manager & Customer Service Managers
  
  
• Pair managers with mentors within 2 months — HR Manager & Senior Leadership Team

 

What are some of the benefits of improving employee retention?

1. Cost reduction

Replacing a departing employee is costly. Plus, recruiting and onboarding is time consuming. Your best bet is to shape a solid retention strategy to minimize resource loss.

2. Higher productivity

When your workforce is constantly turning over, it’s difficult  to build teams of productive, knowledgeable, and skilled employees. Ramping up employees toward productivity can take many months, and your other employees will have to pick up the slack. 

3. Better employee experience

Tenured employees have the company expertise needed to solve customer problems and keep them happy. Plus, when you engage employees with an effective retention strategy, they will exude those feelings of happiness to customers.

4. Healthy company culture

Company culture is a key factor behind whether your employees leave or stay. Organizations who have high retention typically have an inclusive culture that celebrates all employees, and you won’t dread logging on or walking into the office everyday. 

5. Increased employee engagement

The relationship between employee engagement and retention is strong. Those with high retention can experience all of the benefits of employee engagement, including reduced absenteeism, better employee health, higher profitability, and happy, satisfied employees. 

6. Improved morale

When your employees leave, it can be a disappointment for remaining employees. But when your retention rate is high, employee morale improves. When morale improves, your workplace will be a better, more positive place to work.

7. Higher revenue and better ROI

It’s difficult to get a sufficient return on your onboarding and recruiting initiatives when experiencing high turnover. But when you have an effective retention strategy, the cost it takes to ramp up employees will seem miniscule in comparison to the outcomes they drive throughout their tenure. 

 

Retention strategy examples & case studies

Effective retention strategies all share a common thread – intentional listening. When employers invest in understanding what truly matters to their employees, they can create targeted approaches that address the real turnover drivers. The most successful companies don’t rely on assumptions but use data to pinpoint exactly where to focus their retention efforts. 

Benesch Strengthens Culture & Connection

Benesch worked on improving their workplace culture by emphasizing connection and engagement. They implemented a mentorship program that encourages stronger relationships between senior leaders and new hires, fostering a sense of belonging from day one. This initiative helped improve retention rates and strengthened the firm’s internal culture.

Redwire Enhances Employee Engagement with Transparency

Redwire focused on improving employee engagement by increasing transparency in their communication. They shared company goals and progress updates regularly, fostering trust and clarity within their team. This transparency created a more cohesive work environment, which in turn boosted retention.

ODW Logistics Develops People Leaders

ODW Logistics invested in developing strong people leaders within the company. They implemented targeted leadership training programs and created clear pathways for leadership growth. This strategy helped boost employee engagement and reduce turnover by empowering managers to better support and develop their teams.

Mutual of Omaha Leverages Pulse Surveys

Mutual of Omaha leveraged pulse surveys to continuously gauge employee sentiment and identify potential retention risks. By gathering real-time feedback, they were able to address concerns promptly and keep employees engaged, leading to a reduction in turnover.

Sammons Financial Group Increases Listening to Drive Change

Sammons Financial Group focused on improving retention by actively listening to their employees. They implemented regular feedback sessions and used this input to drive meaningful changes in policies and practices, which helped build stronger trust and engagement within their teams.

 

Maximize the effectiveness of your employee retention strategies with Retention Radar.

Your employees send you departure signals long before they leave. You need to stop critical talent from exiting by catching signals early.

Retention Radar uses AI and predictive analytics to analyze employee feedback, identify risk, and advise you on retention strategies.

Resources for improving your employee retention strategies

Quiz: How strong is your retention strategy?

Take this 5-minute quiz to assess your retention strategy, identify gaps, and get expert guidance on how to retain your most critical talent.

Take the quiz! >>

 

eBook: How to Keep Your Best Talent

With the right intel, insights, and a roadmap for change, you can build a culture that draws in and retains your best talent.

Get the eBook >>

 

Get a demo: Retention Radar

See how Retention Radar can help you get the clarity and confidence you need to show you’re doing everything you can to retain your best people. 

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Employee Retention Strategies FAQ

How can HR leaders predict employee turnover?

Forward-thinking companies are tapping into advanced analytics and machine learning to spot employees who might leave before it happens. By diving into data from engagement surveys, performance reviews, compensation records, and even analyzing email sentiment, these AI models can highlight which team members are most likely to make a move in the next 6 to 12 months. This kind of insight sets the stage for proactive retention strategies aimed at keeping the top talent and those at risk of leaving.

What makes an employee retention strategy effective?

Effective retention strategies shine with a few key traits. First, they use predictive analytics to spot retention risks early on, before employees explore other options. They thrive on continuous employee feedback and insights from the voice-of-the-employee, which provide valuable context for understanding the reasons behind turnover risks. Furthermore, these strategies focus on taking action by directing retention efforts toward crucial roles, high performers, and specific demographic groups that may be more likely to leave. Lastly, they empower front-line team leaders by sharing data insights and creating a sense of accountability, allowing them to drive meaningful change.

What role do team leaders play in employee retention?

HR sets the stage for a solid retention strategy, but the real magic happens with team leaders. They’re the ones chatting with employees daily, picking up on team vibes, and managing the work environment that affects how engaged and committed everyone feels. An excellent retention strategy gives these leaders real-time insights about their team’s feelings and potential retention risks. This gives them the tools to have open and honest conversations, create personalized stay plans, and positively impact before any issues become big problems.

What are the main drivers of employee retention?

Recent research highlights several key factors that drive employee retention, and their significance can vary by role, industry, and demographics. The most important drivers include opportunities for growth and development, a good work-life balance with flexibility, and fostering a sense of belonging and inclusion. Additionally, trust and transparency in leadership, fair compensation and rewards, and engaging work that connects to the company’s mission and values play a crucial role. Leading organizations keep an eye on these factors and take action when they discover that employees’ needs aren’t being fully met.

What is the number one way to retain employees?

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, giving employees chances to grow and develop their careers stands out as the top reason they stick around, according to global research. People crave opportunities to learn, tackle new challenges, and hone their skills. But growth doesn’t have to mean climbing a strict corporate ladder. The best employers help create pathways for employees to build expertise in different areas, take on exciting new projects, or even switch careers. The trick is to empower everyone to evolve in ways that match their interests and meet the company’s needs.