Employee Retention Playbook, Step by Step for 2027

Find out why people really leave and give your best people reasons to stay, with six plays from leaver analysis and stay interviews to a review of your whole offer.

Who it's for

Managers, HR leads, founders and team leaders who are losing people they want to keep, or want to prevent it. Most plays are a two- to three-hour management session or a round of one-to-one conversations over a week.

What you'll learn

• Code every leaver's reasons, work out leaving rates by team and length of service, and separate the losses you regret from those you do not
• Spot retention risk early with a confidential grid of the impact of losing each person against how likely they are to leave, based on what people do and say at work
• Hold stay interviews with five fixed questions, and deliver one agreed action within two weeks
• Catch early regret in new starters with three identical check-ins in week 1, month 1 and month 3
• Open up internal moves with an internal-first rule for vacancies, lateral moves, secondments, stretch projects and a specialist track
• Review the whole offer group by group, using Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory to separate reasons to leave from reasons to stay, and agree a written counter-offer policy

What's inside

• 39 pages, 6 plays
• Every play sets out its objective, when to use it and when not to, the time, people and materials it needs, numbered steps, a diagram, a ready-to-use template, an illustrative example from a fictional UK organisation and common mistakes to avoid
• One template per play: Leaver Insight Grid, Retention Risk Grid, Stay Interview Guide and Action Note, New Starter Pulse Check-in, Internal Moves Map, and Retention Offer Review
• UK notes on handling leaver records as personal data and on the legal side of pay, flexible working and contract changes, pointing you to ACAS, gov.uk and the ICO
• A closing action plan, Your 90-Day Retention Plan, with a one-page checklist that runs all six plays in 90 days
• PDF in A4 format — read on screen or print
• Instant download after purchase

Contents

1. Find Out Why People Really Leave
2. Spot Retention Risk Early
3. Hold Stay Interviews
4. Catch Early Regret in New Starters
5. Open Up Internal Moves
6. Review the Whole Offer

Part of The Business Library

This playbook is one of the 55 ebooks in The Business Library, available together for £109 (worth £1,437 if bought separately: the total of the individual prices of the included titles in our store). It is also included in The Ultimate Business Bundle, which adds 8 checklists and toolkits and 10 workbooks — all 73 products for £147.