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Cost of Turnover · Know your number

What is turnover actually costing you?

Most leaders have never seen their number. Enter three facts about your workforce and see what turnover costs your organization every year — grounded in research built on nearly one million employee interviews.

Run the numbers Start a Workforce Strategy Conversation
01 Tell us about your workforce

Use last year's numbers if you have them. Estimates are fine — you can adjust everything.

020,000
$0$250,000
20%
1%100%
33%

As a percentage of the departing employee's salary. Our research averages 33%; published estimates run from 5% to well over 100% depending on the job. Adjust it to match your workforce.

5%Research average: 33%200%
02 See your cost
Your estimated annual cost of turnover
$357,271
20
employees leave each year
Equal to the annual salaries of 7 full-time employees.
$17,864
average cost per departure
That's $979 lost every day.
Work Institute research: 3 in 4 departures are less preventable.
$267,953 preventable
03 See your savings

Three in four departures are preventable when the causes are known. What happens if you reduce turnover?

10%
$178,636
returned to your budget each year
10
preventable departures avoided each year

Recovering even a few of these departures typically covers the cost of a retention program.

Go deeper

Want to understand what makes up the cost of turnover?

We'll send a short series on what drives the number, where it hides, and what organizations like yours have done about it. Starting with the Determining the Costs of Turnover white paper.
A few emails, not a campaign. Unsubscribe anytime.

So far today, turnover has cost an organization like yours $0.00… and it's still counting.

How the math works

A conservative estimate, on purpose.

The 33% default comes from Work Institute's review of published turnover-cost research. It counts recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and lost productivity — the real number for complex roles often runs higher.

Read the white paper: Determining the Costs of Turnover 
1.
Employees leaving each year  =  total employees × annual turnover rate
2.
Cost per departure  =  average annual salary × estimated cost of turnover
3.
Annual cost of turnover  =  employees leaving × cost per departure
Why Work Institute
Insight without action is wasted. Truth enables better decisions.
The Work Institute belief
~1,000,000
employee interviews since 2000
20,000+
employees interviewed every year
3 in 4
departures shown to be preventable
The next step

Your number is a conversation starter.

The calculator shows the size of the problem. Finding the causes behind it — and which departures you can prevent — is what we do. Bring your number to a scoped conversation with a workforce strategy expert.

Talk to a retention expert Get the white paper