Managing for Accountability

CHAPTER 9

Retaining Your Top Talent

This chapter offers you proven strategies for retaining your top talent. You will also learn to avoid the missteps that lead even good employers to lose their best employees.

Turnover Costs

Unwanted turnover costs employers a substantial amount in lost money, knowledge, and productivity. Multiple researchers estimate that losing an employee costs an employer 90 to 200 percent of the employee’s annual salary.¹ This financial burden includes the time and expenses involved in recruiting, onboarding, and training a new hire.

The employer also loses institutional knowledge and productivity as it takes 6 to 12 months or longer for a new hire to come up to speed. Crucial projects are often halted, or start over from ...