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21 Must-Know Employee Retention Stats to Keep Your Team Together

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Cassandra Rose, SPHR, SHRM-SCP


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What makes peo­ple decide to stay with a com­pa­ny? For many employ­ees, the rea­sons they choose to stay with an employ­er can be as var­ied and diverse as the employ­ees themselves.

No com­pa­nies want to lose their peo­ple. It can be painful to watch teams fall apart. Thank­ful­ly, some sig­nif­i­cant trends have emerged from the troves of avail­able employ­ee reten­tion data.

The fol­low­ing 21 employ­ee reten­tion sta­tis­tics help illus­trate what it takes to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment that improves employ­ee well-being and encour­ages them to stay with a com­pa­ny long-term.

General Employee Retention Statistics

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To increase employ­ee reten­tion, it’s impor­tant to first under­stand the employ­ee reten­tion envi­ron­ment and why it’s a crit­i­cal met­ric to track.

1. 87% of com­pa­nies agree increas­ing reten­tion is essential.

Accord­ing to For­tune Mag­a­zine, 87% of employ­ers agree that increas­ing employ­ee reten­tion is an essen­tial part of their ongo­ing strategy.

2. 30% of new employ­ees leave with­in 3 months.

Employ­ment hourly sched­ul­ing soft­ware, Zoom Shift, report­ed that almost 30% of new hires leave with­in their first three months of employment.

3. 3 mil­lion peo­ple quit their jobs every month.

Accord­ing to The U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics, approx­i­mate­ly three mil­lion peo­ple quit their jobs every month. For a frame of ref­er­ence, that’s rough­ly the pop­u­la­tion of the entire state of Neva­da leav­ing their jobs every month.

4. It costs 33% of an employee’s annu­al wage to replace them.

SHRM reports that it costs one-third of an employee’s annu­al salary to replace them.

5. Com­pa­nies with good reten­tion rates have quadru­ple the profit.

A study by North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty found that com­pa­nies with high reten­tion rates make four times more prof­its than those with high turnover.

Understanding Why People Leave

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To under­stand how to make peo­ple stay, it’s crit­i­cal to know why they’re leav­ing in the first place.

6. 82% of people consider leaving because of a lack of advancement opportunities.

One study by Career Addict showed that more than 82% of peo­ple con­sid­er leav­ing their jobs because of a lack of career advance­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties with­in the company.

7. 70% of employees want more development opportunities.

A sur­vey by The Har­ris Poll showed that 70% of employ­ees are at least ​“some­what like­ly” to leave their employ­ers for an employ­er who offers bet­ter devel­op­ment opportunities.

8. 1 out of 2 people will leave a job because of burnout.

Forbes report­ed that up to 50% of employ­ees leave their cur­rent jobs because of the burnout feel­ing of being over­worked and exhausted.

9. 1 out of 2 people will resign because of their manager.

Gallup found that 50% of peo­ple leave their jobs to get away from an incom­pat­i­ble manager.

10. People are more likely to leave if there’s a lack of respect.

A Tiny­Pulse sur­vey found if employ­ees feel like there’s a low lev­el of respect with­in their com­pa­ny, they are 26% more like­ly to leave.

11. 13 of employees will look for a new job because of salary woes.

Glass­door report­ed that 30% of peo­ple plan to look for a new job if they do not receive a salary increase.

12. Job security plays a significant role in why people leave.

The Chron report­ed that a lack of job secu­ri­ty remains one of the top rea­sons peo­ple leave their job.

The Key to Employee Retention: Why People Stay

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An in-depth piece from the Har­vard Busi­ness Review says com­pa­nies spend inor­di­nate amounts of time fig­ur­ing out why peo­ple leave. Turnover is inevitable, but it doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly always cor­re­late with why peo­ple stay.

Study­ing turnover to increase reten­tion is anal­o­gous to research­ing divorce to increase the num­ber of long-last­ing mar­riages. It’s impor­tant to know why peo­ple get divorced, but it only illus­trates half the pic­ture. To increase endur­ing mar­riages, one would also need to study why cou­ples stay married.

In a busi­ness sense, it’s the same. It’s impor­tant to know why peo­ple leave, but there’s also a need to under­stand what makes them choose to stay.

So, why do peo­ple stay?

13. A positive onboarding experience increases retention by 82%.

Accord­ing to Glass­door, a pos­i­tive onboard­ing and train­ing expe­ri­ence can increase reten­tion by as much as 82%.

14. Mentorship programs increase retention by 50%.

Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­a­tion for Tal­ent Devel­op­ment, men­tor­ship pro­grams can increase employ­ee reten­tion by 50%.

15. Engaged employees are 87% more likely to stay.

Qualtrics’s Glob­al Employ­ee Expe­ri­ence Trends Report found that employ­ees who are high­ly engaged in their work are 87% more like­ly to stay with their cur­rent company.

16. People are 5 times more likely to stay if their manager provides consistent feedback.

The same Qualtrics report found that employ­ees are five times more like­ly to stay with their com­pa­ny if their man­ag­er pro­vides con­sis­tent feedback.

17. Empathy keeps employees around.

Accord­ing to a Busi­nes­solver exec­u­tive sum­ma­ry, 90% of employ­ees are more like­ly to stay with their employ­er if their boss­es are empa­thet­ic to their needs. Fur­ther­more, 96% of employ­ees agree it’s imper­a­tive for their employ­ers to demon­strate empathy.

18. People stay with companies that have a greater purpose.

A Tiny­Pulse study found that employ­ees who feel like their com­pa­ny has a greater pur­pose beyond just prof­its are 27% more like­ly to stay with their company.

19. Remote options decrease turnover by a quarter.

Accord­ing to Owl Labs, a work-from-home option can decrease turnover by 25%.

20. People stay with ethical companies.

The Man­i­fest found that 79% of peo­ple would not take a job with a high­er salary if the job had ques­tion­able ethics.

21. Employee recognition is critical for retention.

A Tiny­Pulse report found that employ­ees who do not feel rec­og­nized are twice as like­ly to leave their com­pa­ny as those who do. Addi­tion­al­ly, 24% of employ­ees who hadn’t received recog­ni­tion in the pre­vi­ous two weeks had recent­ly inter­viewed for anoth­er job.

Deciphering Employee Retention Data for Meaningful Impact

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If these employ­ee reten­tion sta­tis­tics illus­trate any­thing, it’s that improv­ing employ­ee reten­tion often requires many things, includ­ing some com­bi­na­tion of fair salary, excel­lent ben­e­fits and good culture.

For more infor­ma­tion and action­able tips for increas­ing employ­ee reten­tion, check out our blog: How to Reduce Employ­ee Turnover: 15 Tac­tics for Reten­tion.


Learn how Fringe works and helps com­pa­nies cre­ate health­i­er, hap­pi­er employ­ees who want to stay around.

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