Employee Retention Plan That Can Help You Keep Critical Talent

This post originally appeared on The QWork Future Blog¹ by Quantum Workplace, an LLR 6 portfolio company, and was adapted for GrowthBits.

Companies need proactive employee retention strategies to identify flight risks among key talent before they turn into resignations.

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.²

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 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.³

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 analytics⁴ 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.

Replacing an employee is also costly, ranging from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary.

 

Employee retention and why it’s important

Employee retention measures an organization’s ability to keep talent and reduce turnover, which is a significant factor in driving business success. It is represented as the percentage of employees who stay with the organization over a given time period.

Regrettable employee turnover is when high-performing employees or those in key roles leave, often for preventable reasons. Losing these team members can be costly and shake up teams, customer relationships, and business performance. Your retention rate can be a true indicator of business success. Engaged, motivated employees who are committed to your organization are likely to have a positive impact on the business.

When top performers leave, they take critical knowledge with them, and the team they leave can suffer from decreased productivity, confidence, and increased pressure. As the role sits unfilled, productivity can drop and burn out and further turnover could follow. Replacing an employee is also costly, ranging from one-half to two times⁵ 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 strategy⁶ 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. According to Gallup, 42% of employees that leave their organization say their departure was preventable.⁷

Use employee retention analytics⁸ 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.

Gather quantitative and qualitative feedback to identify what drives turnover in different workforce segments.

 

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 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.

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.

We 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?

Managers own retention. But if we don’t equip them with the right tools and data, how can we expect them to act?

 

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.

Here’s the bottom line.

Employee retention is a metric that should be measured. By leveraging strategies like continuous feedback, predictive analytics, and targeted retention programs, organizations can identify flight risks early and take action. Empowering team leaders with these insights can help to ensure retention is a shared responsibility, fostering a motivated, engaged and committed organization.