Hiring the right people is a win. Developing them is smart. But none of it matters if they walk out the door. This is why an effective talent retention strategy isn’t the end of the talent cycle; it is the engine that keeps it running.

If you have followed along with my earlier posts, you know we have covered the first two pillars of a complete talent strategy: talent acquisition strategy and talent development strategy. We are now digging into the third and final piece, talent retention strategy, and why it is more than just hanging onto people. If you implement this step correctly, you protect your investment and build a reputation as a workplace where people want to grow.

This post will break down what makes retention strategies work, share new research, and walk through employee retention strategies that are easy to implement quickly. If you’re trying to reduce turnover, curb absenteeism, or just create a better employee experience, read this post from start to finish.

Why Talent Retention Strategy Deserves a Bigger Seat at the Table

Let’s talk about return on investment (ROI)!

Every company wants to save money and drive productivity but protecting its talent pipeline is not always are the top of the list. A strong talent retention strategy checks all three boxes. It isn’t just about cutting costs; it is about creating continuity within an organization. When people stay, culture stabilizes, collaboration deepens, and teams grow and flourish together.

Here are a few numbers that speak for themselves:

• A 2024 Gallup report found that highly engaged teams saw a 78% decrease in absenteeism and a 23% increase in profitability. That is business impact not just a theory.
• According to SHRM’s 2024 data, voluntary quits declined for the first time in years, dropping from 43.3% to 38.5%. But here’s the kicker: even with better retention numbers, many employees are still eyeing the door due to poor culture fit or stagnant development opportunities.
• LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report revealed that 88% of organizations say learning and internal mobility are their top tools for retention. Not bonuses. Not ping-pong tables. Growth.

What are the takeaways? A talent retention strategy does NOT happen by accident, It is engineered through a system that connects to everything else.

The Five Building Blocks of a Talent Retention Strategy

There are five effective employ retention strategies that focus on: culture, growth, leadership, flexibility, and well-being. There is not a one size fits all solution for combating turnover but there is a blueprint for you to create your own. Let’s take a look at it:

1. Culture & Engagement: Make It Make Sense

People don’t leave jobs they leave cultures that don’t fit. If your values are just words on a wall, employees will clock out mentally long before they quit physically.

This is where our first employee engagement strategy comes into play: culture and engagement!

Strong culture and engagement show people what their company stands for and how the work they are doing every day connects to it. Posters in the breakroom or a flashy mission statement are missing the mark. You have to build trust with consistent leadership, communication and meaningful recognition.

Employees need to be and feel heard every day just when something has already gone wrong. This will allow them to feel connected to something larger than just a job description. Showing someone that they are doing something for a purpose that they align with and coming into work everyday becomes less about perks and more about making progress towards a business’ goal. Improving morale can reduce issues that every organization has issues with like absenteeism.

2. Career Growth and Internal Mobility: Build Highways, Not Exits

Growth is tied to a decrease in turnover because people stay when they feel valued.

Talent retention will thrive when an employee can see a future with a company. This means that paths for advancement, the ability for continuous learning and internal mobility must be clearly defined. You should be offering internal gigs, stretch assignments and skill-based projects to employees that show potential BEFORE they show interest in taking the next step in their career.

LinkedIn reports that internal mobility is a key pillar of any modern Talent Retention Strategy. It improves tenure, builds loyalty, and increases employee confidence in leadership.

Want better retention metrics? Track internal hires, promotion rates, and learning participation over time. Make the data work for you.

3. Leadership & Management: People Leave Bosses

Managers make or break culture. Period.

No talent retention program can succeed without strong people managers, and no amount of perks can outweigh the damage a bad boss can cause.

It is imperative that manager upskilling should be a foundational part of your talent retention strategy. Managers trained in setting goals and conducting reviews should also lead stay interviews and give consistent feedback. The best managers are able to coach in real time.

Stay interviews are typically conversations that are short, sweet and to the point about what is working and what is not working. These interviews can help you spot a flight risk before the stay interviews become exit interviews.

Empowered managers = loyal teams

4. Recognition, Rewards & Flexibility: Pay Isn’t Everything

Salary is very important, but it is not the only thing that keeps people around.

In the current workforce, we have seen that companies that provide autonomy, flexibility and provide consistent acknowledgement are successful. A total rewards strategy will include more than just compensation. A company can enable performance through including benefits that can support an employee outside of work, build a flexible work arrangement and give personal recognition.

According to SHRM, flexibility has surpassed salary as one of the top three reasons people stay or leave a company. That should be a wake-up call for any HR team still stuck on legacy policies.

Make sure your talent retention program includes recognition rituals—public, private, peer-to-peer. Simple moments of appreciation go a long way.

5. Health, Well-being & Absenteeism: You Can’t Retain Burned-Out People

Let’s talk wellness.

The frequent and unplanned absences of an employee, that can often lead to loss of productivity and an increase in workload for other employees is called Absenteeism (Kenton, 2024).

Chronic absenteeism is something that can disrupt workflow, increase operational costs, and possibly cause a negative effect on morale. Employees who miss work more frequently tend to struggle to maintain interpersonal relationships with colleagues which leads to a decrease in team cohesion. Absenteeism can signal to upper management that there are deeper organization issues. These issues could be bad management practices or lack of support for employees’ mental health.  Absenteeism can be a sign that an employee is feeling unsupported or is struggling in their personal life

A company’s talent retention strategy must focus on workplace wellbeing. Mental health is a hot topic right now and encouraging work boundaries and implementing stress reduction programs can help employees deal with the ups and downs in the workplace.

Organize your retention strategy by making sure people are okay and feel safe in their working environment and prioritize mental health benefits.

Measuring the Health of Your Talent Retention Strategy

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. A good talent retention strategy includes smart tracking and analysis across a few key indicators:

• Turnover rate (especially first-year)
• Absenteeism trends
• Internal mobility stats
• Employee Net Promoter Score
• Feedback from exit and stay interviews

Don’t forget your hidden metric: retention ROI. Calculate the cost saved by retaining rather than replacing key roles. It’s a powerful number to bring into budget conversations.

Your Retention Roadmap: Four Steps That Work

Not sure how to turn ideas into action? Use this quick-start guide to building a better talent retention program:

1. Diagnose: Look at your data. Where are people leaving? What are they saying in exit interviews?
2. Collaborate on Solutions: Employees and managers can sit down and build solutions for the team. A solution is more effective if everyone is bought in.
3. Pilot & Test: Start with pushing out small changes over a short period of time (60 to 90 Days).
4. Scale Only What is Working: After testing, double or triple down on the successful pilot tests that you are seeing. This is the time to ramp up quickly, do not allow momentum to faulter, PUSH!!

You cannot put retention efforts on the back burner. It is a rhythm of continuous listening, learning, and leading.

The Full Talent Strategy Flywheel

The three connected pillars of a talent strategy: talent acquisition, talent development and talent retention strategy when built correctly form a solid foundation for growth. If you do not maintain one, the building will crumble.

Remember:

• Talent Acquisition Strategy: brings people in
• Talent Development Strategy: grows them
• Talent Retention Strategy: is what keeps them aligned, motivated, and loyal.

We have closed the loop on all three pillars and the next few posts will be about using data to track progress and scale what is working in your new talent strategy

Now that we’ve closed the loop on all three, the next post will dive into how to use data to track progress, prove impact, and scale what works.

References (APA 7th Format with Links)

Gallup. (2024). State of the Global Workplace Report 2024. Gallup Press.
Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx

LinkedIn Learning. (2025). Workplace Learning Report 2025. LinkedIn Corporation.
Available at: https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/workplace-learning-report

Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). (2024, November 14). Future of Talent Retention: Understanding Why Employees Leave and Why They Stay.
Available at: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/future-of-talent-retention.aspx

Kenton, W. (2024, May 29). Absenteeism. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/absenteeism.asp