Retention and Turnover

This part of the HR glossary covers the numbers HR uses to see how many people stay with the company and who leaves. Turnover metrics show the exits, retention metrics show the people who stay, and together they point to problems in hiring, onboarding, management or pay before those problems become expensive.

The base metric is the employee turnover rate: leavers divided by average headcount for a period. The attrition rate narrows it to people who chose to leave, and splitting turnover into voluntary turnover and involuntary turnover separates resignations from dismissals and layoffs. Early turnover looks at new hires who leave within their first months, which mostly reflects hiring accuracy and onboarding. The retention rate looks at the same picture from the other side: the share of people employed at the start of a period who are still there at the end.

Each term gives a definition, the formula with a worked example and advice on reading the result. Compare your numbers with your own trend and with companies in your industry rather than with one universal benchmark, and use turnover intention to see who may leave next.

In Skailer, the Retention report in HR analytics counts turnover, attrition and retention from your HR records, and the free employee turnover calculator works them out from three headcount numbers.