Work Institute's Retention Reports
What is the Retention Report?
The Retention Report, an annual publication by Work Institute, provides a comprehensive overview of trends in employee turnover. It aggregates sentiments from nearly 100,000 exit interviews across diverse industries. The interviews, conducted throughout the year by Work Institute, focus on generating qualitative feedback derived from open-ended questions, offering valuable insights into the real reasons for employee departures and what organizations can and should do to retain top talent.
As data-driven aggregation of these conversations, the Retention Report provides an invaluable encapsulation of the current workforce sentiment and can act as a guide for organizations looking to enhance employee satisfaction and reduce turnover rates.
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2025: Employee Retention Truths in Today's Workplace
This year's report equips organizations with the retention truths needed to build a more committed and high-performing workforce. Uncover the real reasons employees leave, stay, and engage, grounded in direct employee feedback.
2024: Decoding the Emerging Workforce
Unlock insights on the state of the U.S. Workforce, why employees quit their jobs, and strategies to improve employee retention. Work Institute's Retention Report is your guide to employee engagement success.
2023: The Complexities of Employee Retention
The 2023 Report details the most frequently mentioned reasons for employees leaving, supplementary data on first-year turnover, Net Excellence Scores, employee retention, and diversity insights.
2022: How Employers Caused the Great Resignation
The 2022 Retention Report details the most popular employee Reasons for Leaving, the state of the US workforce, and how Attractors to a new job are different from Reasons for Leaving throughout 2021.
2022 Healthcare Retention Report
Get the key trends and insights on healthcare retention, turnover, and reasons for leaving from over 23,000 healthcare exit interviews in 2021.
2021 Mid-Year Employee Retention update
We investigated the reasons employees quit their jobs at record levels in the first half of 2021 and provide insights as to what must be done to effectively retain employees.
2021 Retention Report: The COVID Edition
The influence of the global pandemic on the U.S. workforce was unprecedented and we analyzed our data to deliver you the US workforce insights, trends, and reasons for leaving throughout the year 2020.
2020 Retention Report
Insights on 2019 Turnover Trends, Reasons for Leaving, Cost of Turnover, and Recommendations
2019 Retention Report
Trends, Reasons & a Call to Action from the insights of over 250,000 employee interviews
2018 Retention Report
Get the Guide to learn the reasons employees leave their jobs, how these reasons have changed, and how market conditions impact the reasons employees leave
2018 Retention Report Healthcare Supplement
Get the key insights on healthcare retention and turnover from over 23,000 healthcare exit interviews
2017 Retention Report
Trends, Reasons & Recommendations from over 240,000 employee interviews
2017 Retention Report Healthcare Supplement
Insights from organizations that provide goods and services to support the delivery of care for people's health.