Stop regretted resignations.
Most regretted exits are preventable. The signal exists weeks before someone updates their CV — disengagement, dropping sentiment, a manager relationship that’s gone cold. This is the working kit: the business case, the cost model, a flight-risk playbook and the templates to act. Free to read. Yours to forward.
Size it for your teamThe exit you didn’t see coming is the most expensive one.
Regretted attrition doesn’t appear on a budget line until the resignation lands. By then, the cost is already committed.
Replacing a leaver costs between half and twice their salary once you account for recruiting, the months before a backfill is fully productive, and the institutional knowledge that walked out with them. Most of those costs are avoidable — the majority of people who leave show clear signals weeks before they resign.
The intervention window is real and wide. Managers who run stay interviews, respond to early disengagement and create visible growth paths retain people who would otherwise leave quietly. The cost of doing it is low. The cost of not doing it compounds every quarter.
- 0.5–2×
- of salary to replace one leaver
- 9 months
- before a backfill is fully productive
- 52%
- of leavers say their manager could have prevented it
- ~60%
- of exits are regretted by the organisation
Six findings worth having in the room.
Drawn from Gallup, SHRM and Work Institute research. Use them to make the case, then use the calculator to make it personal.
- Weeks, not days
- Flight-risk signals — disengagement, reduced initiative, social withdrawal — typically appear four to eight weeks before a resignation. That’s the window managers have to act.
- 52% on the manager
- More than half of voluntary leavers say their direct manager could have done something to keep them. The relationship is the retention strategy.
- Stay interviews work
- Organisations that run structured stay interviews report meaningfully lower regretted attrition — because they surface fixable problems before they become final decisions.
- Comp isn’t #1
- Growth, manager quality and belonging consistently outrank pay in exit surveys. Most regretted exits are winnable without a counter-offer.
- First-year cliff
- Attrition risk peaks in the first twelve months. Employees who don’t feel set up for success by month six are far more likely to leave within the year.
- The cost stack is hidden
- Recruiting and agency fees are visible; lost productivity during the gap, ramp time and re-training rarely show up in the same report — so the true cost is chronically underestimated.
Size the leak.
Four inputs. The annual cost of regretted attrition you can take back by catching flight risk early and acting on it — for your headcount specifically.
What good managers actually do before the resignation.
Retention is an active skill, not a passive hope. These are the habits to coach — concrete enough to run in a one-pager.
Watch the signals
Disengagement shows up before a resignation does. Reduced output, fewer ideas, shorter replies, skipping optional meetings — these are the flags.
- Track sentiment and participation, not just output
- A drop in meeting contribution is an early warning
- Ask once — “everything ok?” — before it becomes a pattern
Run stay interviews before exit interviews
An exit interview tells you why someone left. A stay interview tells you how to stop them leaving — and they’re a fraction of the cost.
- Schedule them before you have a concern, not after
- Ask what would make them leave and what would make them stay
- Act on the answer within two weeks or don’t ask
Fix the fixable fast
Most regretted exits hinge on one or two things: a working relationship, a development opportunity, a workload problem. Most of those are fixable — if you move quickly.
- Identify the one thing that would change their calculus
- Don’t promise what you can’t deliver
- A small move made fast beats a large promise made slowly
Grow people on purpose
Stagnation is a top-three exit driver. People who can see a path forward don’t update their LinkedIn profiles.
- Name the next role or skill stretch explicitly
- Tie 1:1s to growth, not just status updates
- Visibility inside the org is as valuable as a title change
From a conversation to a system that catches people in time.
Retention isn’t a campaign, it’s a cadence. Five steps to move from good intentions to measurable results.
- 01
Measure where you are
Survey flight-risk sentiment and regret scores by team. You can’t track improvement you never baselined.
- 02
Train managers on the signals
Give every manager the flight-risk checklist and the stay-interview framework. Make the early conversation the default, not the exception.
- 03
Build the stay-interview habit
Schedule them quarterly for anyone in the first two years. Treat them as a retention tool, not a performance check.
- 04
Act on what you hear
Create a fast path for managers to escalate fixable issues — compensation anomalies, growth blockers, team friction. Speed is the point.
- 05
Track and close the loop
Watch regretted attrition, sentiment trends and stay-interview completion rates. Report back to managers so they see their impact.
Catch it early, act in time
This is where the two halves meet: October Health surfaces the early signal — disengagement, burnout, dropping sentiment — and October People turns it into action: stay interviews, manager 1:1s, recognition and growth moves before someone updates their CV …
Questions your managers can use today.
Copy-paste starting points for stay interviews and re-engagement conversations. Edit the brackets, then listen.
“I want to make sure we’re having the right conversations before they become the wrong ones. I’d love 30 minutes to talk about what’s working for you and what isn’t — no agenda other than making sure [name] wants to be here.”
“If you were weighing up whether to stay at [company] for another two years, what would tip it clearly in favour of staying? And is there anything right now that’s tipping it the other way?”
“I’ve noticed [name] seems a bit less energised lately and I wanted to check in properly — not as a performance thing, just as a conversation. Is there something going on that I can help with, or something we’ve dropped the ball on?”
“Before you hear from anyone else — I want to make sure you know where I see [name] going here, and what we’re building toward. Can we talk about what the next 12 months could look like for you?”
your organization
Stop Regretted
Resignations.
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Get the business case.
A designed PDF business case with your numbers baked in — the data, the playbook, the rollout plan, and more. One email; yours to forward to your CEO.
Stop Regretted Resignations.
This is where the two halves meet: October Health surfaces the early signal — disengagement, burnout, dropping sentiment — and October People turns it into action: stay interviews, manager 1:1s, recognition and growth moves before someone updates their CV …