10 Employee Retention Metrics That Predict Who's About to Quit

Your CFO keeps staring at one number. People keep walking out the door, and each exit costs more than anyone wants to admit. 

Employee retention metrics have become the top priority for most HR leaders because budgets are tight and good people are getting harder to find.

You need to monitor retention just as closely as you do customer churn. Clear formulas, solid benchmarks, and the story behind the numbers.

Mix hard data with pulse surveys and exit interviews, and you'll see not just how many people leave but why they're leaving. 

These 10 core retention metrics, benchmarks to evaluate your performance, and ways to turn insights into action will help you identify retention risks before they escalate into expensive departures.

What Are Employee Retention Metrics and Why Do They Matter

Employee retention metrics measure the effectiveness of your company in retaining its employees over time. Think of them as early warning systems for workforce problems.

These metrics matter because they:

• Predict problems before they become crises - A manager with declining team retention signals trouble months before the talent exodus hits

• Reveal hidden patterns - Track who leaves, when they leave, and why they leave, instead of just counting exits

• Enable you to intervene early - Fix onboarding gaps before you lose your next star performer

• Tell complete stories when combined - High voluntary turnover plus low internal mobility rates signal career stagnation

• Shift you from reactive to preventive - Stop scrambling after departures and start preventing them

10 Employee Retention Metrics That Predict Who's About to Quit

Here are the 10 metrics that matter most for predicting departures, complete with formulas, benchmarks, and red flags to watch for. 

Start with the first few that match your biggest retention challenges, then expand your tracking as you build confidence in the data.

1. Overall Employee Retention Rate: Your Foundation Number

This indicates the number of people who chose to stay over the past year. When retention drops, you pay more to replace people and lose all the knowledge those people had about how things work.

How to Calculate: (People at end of year - New hires) ÷ People at start × 100

Say you started the year with 200 people, hired 50 new employees, and ended with 235 people. Your retention rate is (235 - 50) ÷ 200 × 100 = 92.5%. Pretty good.

Good companies keep 90% or more of their people each year. Drop below 90% and you're losing talent faster than you can replace it. Check this every month to catch problems early.

What You Should Do:

Keep at least 90% of your people each year

Check monthly to spot seasonal patterns

Break down by department to find problem areas

Compare against other companies in your industry

Tell leadership when retention drops below 90%

2. Voluntary Turnover Rate: Measuring People Who Choose to Leave

This tracks individuals who quit due to the culture, a lack of growth opportunities, or because their manager stopped supporting them. These exits hurt the most because they reveal the reasons people leave.

How to Calculate: People who quit ÷ Average headcount × 100

Picture a 200-person company where 26 people quit in a year. That's 26 ÷ 200 × 100 = 13% voluntary turnover. The average is 17.3% in the U.S., so you're doing better than most companies.

When voluntary turnover increases, it typically indicates that there are problems that can be addressed. Bad managers, unclear career paths, or stagnant pay. Catch this early, and you can save your best people before they walk.

What You Should Do:

• Keep voluntary turnover below 15% each year

• Ask departing employees why they're leaving

• Track by manager to spot problem leaders

• Fix pay gaps and career progression issues

• Talk to high performers before they start looking

3. New-Hire 90-Day Retention: Catching Onboarding Problems

Your new engineer walks out after seven weeks. That's $50,000 in recruiting and training down the drain, plus three months of lost productivity while you find someone new. Early exits show you where onboarding breaks down.

How to Calculate: New hires remaining at 90 days ÷ Total new hires × 100

If you hired 20 people and 17 are still there at 90 days, your retention rate is 85%. Not bad, considering 29% quit within 90 days on average.

When people leave, it tells you everything. Week 2 departures often mean a bad first impression. Month 2 exits often indicate unclear expectations or inadequate support from managers. Track when people leave to fix the right problems.

What You Should Do: 

• Keep at least 80% of new hires through 90 days

• Ask departing new hires why they left within 48 hours

• Track when people leave to identify problem spots

• Support new hires through month 3

• Pair new people with someone who's been there a while

4. High-Performer Retention Rate: Protecting Your Best People

Your best people close the biggest deals, solve the most challenging problems, and mentor everyone else. When stars leave, you lose productivity, everything they knew about how things work, and team morale. Their exits hurt way more than average departures.

How to Calculate: Top performers remaining ÷ Top performers at start × 100

Say you started with 25 top performers, and 23 are still there at the end of the year. That's 92% retention. Replacing top performers costs 1.5 to 2 times their salary, so losing two stars at $120k each just costs you $360k.

Track this by the manager and the team. When top performer retention drops suddenly, aggressive recruiters are usually circling, or your best people are burning out. Either way, you need to act fast.

What You Should Do:

• Keep 95% or more of your top performers

• Create special development plans for stars

• Check top performer satisfaction every quarter

• Review their pay annually to stay competitive

• Connect stars with Exec's elite coaching network

5. Critical Roles Retention: Protecting Make-or-Break Positions

Some jobs keep your business running. The person who maintains your licenses. The engineer who knows your old systems. 

The account manager is handling your biggest client. When these individuals leave, revenue drops and operations come to a standstill.

How to Calculate: Critical role people remaining ÷ Critical role people at start × 100

Since every company defines "critical" differently, sit with business leaders and identify the 5-10 roles that would create immediate problems if empty. Try to keep around 95% of these people.

When critical role retention drops and you don't have backup people ready, you've found a single point of failure. One departure could result in millions of dollars in lost revenue or delayed launches.

What You Should Do:

• Define critical roles with business leaders

• Have backup people ready for each position

• Pay these people above the market rate

• Give them exclusive development opportunities

• Check who's ready to step up every quarter

6. Manager-Specific Retention: Finding Your Problem Leaders

Your culture may feel solid overall, but bad managers create pockets of turnover that drain talent and destroy team morale. 

Manager-specific retention rates reveal which leaders are driving people away.

How to Calculate: Team departures ÷ Average team size × 100

Compare each manager's retention rate to your company's average retention rate. Say your overall retention is 88%, but one manager's team is at 65%. 

This manager is struggling with fundamental leadership skills. Since managers drive 70% of engagement, fixing this manager's problems will save multiple careers."

You'll see patterns fast when you track by manager. Some leaders retain almost everyone, while others constantly lose people. The difference usually comes down to communication skills, how they give feedback, and emotional intelligence.

What You Should Do:

• Calculate retention rates for each manager every quarter

• Watch out for managers 10+ points below the company average

• Give coaching help to struggling leaders

• Share what high-retention managers do differently

• Include discussions about retention in management performance reviews

7. Internal Mobility Rate: Measuring Growth Opportunities

People tend to stay longer when they have the opportunity to grow within their current role. The internal mobility rate indicates the frequency at which employees transition into new roles.

This metric has a direct impact on retention and whether employees believe they can advance.

How to Calculate: People who changed roles ÷ Average headcount × 100

If 30 people out of 500 moved to new positions this year, your internal mobility rate is 6%. Higher rates mean healthy career growth and engaged employees who see opportunities ahead.

Low mobility combined with high turnover leads to career stagnation. People can't grow inside, so they polish résumés and leave for opportunities elsewhere. The pattern is obvious and can be completely fixed.

What You Should Do: 

• Aim for 8-12% annual internal mobility

• Create clear career paths that people can follow 

• Post internal openings before external recruiting 

• Train managers to spot development opportunities 

• Track promotions alongside moves

8. Employee Engagement Score: Predicting Future Departures

Engagement scores predict who is mentally checked out months before they hand in their resignation letters. This gives you time to intervene while you can still save the relationship.

How to Calculate: Survey employees with proven engagement questions, average the scores

Only 34% of people in the U.S. feel engaged with their jobs. Globally, the figure is even lower, at 23%. That means two-thirds of your payroll is at risk of quitting or job hunting.

Use quarterly surveys with items like "My opinions count" and "I see myself working here in two years." Dropping engagement scores predict turnover 3-6 months before departures.

What You Should Do: 

• Survey engagement every quarter with 8-12 key questions

• Aim for scores above 4.0 on a 5-point scale

• Fix the lowest-scoring items immediately

• Break results down the results by manager and department

• Create action plans within one week of the results

9. eNPS: Your Simplest Early Warning System

Employee Net Promoter Score boils retention risk down to one question: "How likely are you to recommend working here?" The answers predict departures better than complex surveys.

How to Calculate: Percentage of promoters (9-10 scores) minus percentage of detractors (0-6 scores)

Score responses from 0-10, then calculate. If 40% give scores of 9-10, 20% score 0-6, and 40% score 7-8, your eNPS is 40 - 20 = +20. Positive scores mean healthy advocacy. Negative scores mean serious retention problems.

eNPS drops show up in turnover data 3-6 months later. When advocacy falls, people stop recommending your company and start looking elsewhere themselves.

What You Should Do:

• Survey eNPS every quarter with all employees

• Aim for positive scores above +20

• Track trends more than absolute numbers

• Add "why" questions to understand what drives scores

• Address unhappy people within 30 days

10. Cost of Turnover: The Business Case for Keeping People

Every departure hits your budget twice: immediate replacement costs plus lost productivity while seats stay empty. 

Understanding true turnover costs helps justify retention investments and identifies which departures have the greatest impact on the organization.

How to Calculate: Add recruiting costs + onboarding costs + training costs + lost productivity costs, then compare to the departing employee's salary.

For knowledge workers, replacement costs range from 1.5 to 2 times annual salary. Losing a $100k engineer means spending $150k before the replacement reaches full productivity.

Break costs into buckets: recruiting ($5k), interviewing ($2k), onboarding ($3k), training ($5k), and lost productivity ($135k over 6 months). Total: $150k for one departure.

What You Should Do:

• Calculate turnover costs for different job levels

• Track costs every quarter to spot expensive patterns

• Compare retention investments to replacement costs

• Show ROI data to leadership for program funding

• Focus retention efforts on the highest-cost departures

Turning Metrics Into Action

Metrics only matter if they change what you do next. When you pair clear formulas with real employee voice, pulse surveys, stay interviews, and exit data, you expose the story behind the score and know exactly where to intervene. 

Many departures are preventable; this represents a budget that can be reclaimed when the right insights are presented to the right manager at the right time.

Most retention problems stem from management skills. Exec's AI roleplay platform enables managers to practice the necessary skills required to effectively relate to employees. This helps them build leadership capabilities that keep teams engaged and potentially increase retention.

Book a demo today to discover how better conversations lead to data-driven retention improvements in your workplace.