What the data says. And what to do about it.
Research from twenty years of leaver, joiner and engagement data, practical guides for HR teams and managers, and free downloads you can use today. Written to be used, not admired.
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Why people leave
What leavers say on the way out, what was avoidable, and what to do about it.
Why people leave: a year of UK exit data across three sectors
6,152 leavers from 30 UK organisations: about half leave unhappy, career and growth are at or near the top in every sector, and pay matters far more in some sectors than others.
7 min readGuideStay interviews: how to ask people why they stay before they tell you why they left
Who to talk to, when, twelve questions that work, and what managers do with the answers – so you hear the reasons while you can still act on them.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideExit interview questions that get honest answers
25 questions grouped by purpose, the ones to avoid, who should ask and when, and how to turn the answers into themes a board will act on.
⇩ Free download8 min readGuideHandling a resignation conversation: what to say when someone resigns
What to say in the first five minutes, when to check a resignation was meant, four questions before any counter-offer, a clean handover and how to leave the door open.
⇩ Free download7 min readExplainerThe real cost of a resignation in 2026
The recruitment invoice is the visible part. The vacant weeks, the ramp-up and the ripple cost more, and the number a board needs is the avoidable share.
7 min readObservationWhat senior leavers tell you that nobody else will
A departing director has nothing left to lose by being honest and almost never says it to HR. Six things senior leavers tell an independent interviewer, and how to run it.
6 min readNew starters & the first year
Onboarding, early experience and the leavers you lose before they settle.
The first months: what new starters tell us
3,281 new starters, 15 organisations: most are engaged and rate their induction well, but 34% do not report an agreed development plan.
7 min readGuideWhat to ask new starters, and when: designing a new-hire survey
When to ask, seven question areas with examples, how to tell new starters it is coming, and how to follow up with the ones at risk.
⇩ Free download8 min readGuideYour first 90 days as a new manager
What to agree before you start, then three phases: listen and learn, set clarity and rhythm, deliver and review. With a 30-60-90 plan to print.
⇩ Free download8 min readGuideTelling new starters you will ask them how it is going
How to introduce a new-starter survey so the first message arrives before the survey does: design decisions, who to tell and when, confidentiality wording and the follow-up conversation.
7 min readEngagement & listening
Surveys that lead to action: what to ask, how to read it, what to change.
The state of UK employee engagement in 2026
What the 2026 UK evidence says about engagement, why Gallup’s 10% and the CIPD’s 70% are both true, how eight sectors compare, and what the organisations beating the average do.
⇩ Free download9 min readExplainerWhy your engagement survey keeps saying the same thing
Most surveys measure how good things are, not how much they matter or what to do. That is why the same issues come back every year.
6 min readGuideFrom survey results to action: a one-page plan
Most survey results die in a folder. A one-page plan, a few hard rules and a date to report back keep them alive.
⇩ Free download6 min readGuideTwo ways to define your organisation's values, and why that is the easy part
Read your culture from the data, choose top-down or bottom-up, draft with the Aliens or World Café exercise – then embed, which is where most values work stalls.
7 min readGuideUnderstanding employee engagement: what it is, what drives it, how to measure it
A working definition, the evidence that the fit between person and place drives engagement over and above satisfaction, and a measurement method that leads to action.
9 min readObservationWhy your engagement survey and your exit interviews disagree
The survey and the leavers are both telling the truth. Four reasons they differ, and the method we use to read them together without over-reading either.
6 min readManagers & conversations
Difficult conversations, coaching and development, done well.
Four steps to an effective tough conversation
Prepare in seven questions, describe the issue in a minute, assess it together, agree what happens next – and know your own fight-or-flight reflex before you walk in.
6 min readGuideA development conversation that lands: comfort, stretch and panic
Use the comfort, stretch and panic zones to find where someone is ready to grow, then agree one stretch with a safety net.
6 min readGuideForty GROW coaching questions managers actually use
Ten questions for each stage of the GROW model, how to use them in a real conversation, and the mistakes that turn coaching back into telling.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideActive listening for managers: a short, practical guide
Four ways managers listen, seven moves with phrases you can use tomorrow, and a two-minute check on whether it worked.
⇩ Free download6 min readGuideHow to set goals people actually keep
What goal-setting research actually says, six things that make a goal stick, and the if-then plans that keep it alive when work gets busy.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideHow to run a good one-to-one meeting with your team members
How often, how long, a seven-part agenda that puts their items first, questions for each part, what to write down and the mistakes that turn one-to-ones into status updates.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideWhen someone brings you bad news: the first thirty seconds decide the next six months.
Thank them, ask what we know, ask what they need. The lesson comes later. How to react so people keep bringing you problems early.
3 min readGuideAsking your team what you could do differently: and the mid-year conversation it makes possible.
The question, the silence, the one thing you change, and the mid-year conversation built from your notes rather than from memory.
4 min readGuideBeing approachable is a timetable, not a personality.
Approachable means predictable: set a daily window, tell the team, keep it visibly, and go to them if nobody comes.
2 min readGuideDealing with friction between two people the day it starts.
A same-day quiet word with each person, a decision about what kind of problem it is, and a short forward-looking conversation together.
3 min readGuidePairing people across the team: community is built by shared work, not socials.
One real task, two people who do not usually work together, a reason each, and the result shown to the team. Twelve pairs a year.
2 min readGuideSetting a stretch task: development that happens in the work.
One step beyond, a visible result inside a month, handed over in person with your backing, and a question at the end.
3 min readGuideThe no-blame debrief: what did we learn?
Within a day, facts in order, one change with a name on it, and a thing you learned yourself. The individual conversation is separate.
2 min readGuideShadowing, secondments and swaps: the development you can arrange yourself.
Three shapes (a day, a few weeks, a swap), one phone call to another manager, and ten minutes afterwards for the team.
2 min readGuideSaying why the work matters: twenty seconds a week, and show them the result once a quarter.
A specific sentence every week, the result shown once a quarter, and a monthly question about what each person would do more of.
2 min readGuideSharing the dull work: fair, rotated and seen.
Name it out loud, rotate it on a visible list, thank whoever has it, and ask quarterly whether it could stop.
2 min readGuideDelegating a decision, not a task.
Criteria not answers, one decision a week, results and check-points instead of hovering, yes to one experiment a month.
3 min readGuideRecognition that lands: specific, within a week, and in the way they prefer.
Specific, within seven days, in their preferred form; ask how they like it; recognise effort that did not pay off; open meetings with an act of help.
3 min readGuideExplaining how pay works, yourself, in person, before the letter.
Fifteen minutes in private before the letter: criteria, where they sat, what would change it, and what you argued for.
2 min readGuideSponsorship: saying someone’s name in a room they are not in.
One name a quarter in a room they are not in, one opportunity a month with a reason, and an honest next step once a year.
2 min readGuideThe promises list: trust is built from small kept promises.
One list, written in the meeting, read every morning, with slips announced before they happen and a monthly question about what you have left undone.
2 min readGuideExplaining a decision you did not make: what, why, and what you think.
What was decided, why you think so, what you make of it; disagree once then carry it; take one thing up a quarter and bring back the answer.
3 min readGuideThe workload conversation: out of ten, honestly, every week.
One number a week, acted on at eight or above; your own hours visible; leave checked monthly; one stressful thing changed a quarter; the pattern every six months.
3 min readGuideThe most annoying thing: fix it, escalate it, or say you cannot.
One question a month, three categories, fixes inside the month, an hour on the floor each quarter, and a report back on everything escalated.
2 min readGuideTranslating the organisation: five minutes a week.
Five minutes a week on what is going on beyond the team, the monthly rumour check, a senior visitor each quarter, and the plan in one sentence.
3 min readGuideMarking moments: belonging is made of the things someone bothered to mark.
One moment a month, five minutes; three things the team stands for, argued over each quarter; two questions for everyone once a year.
2 min readGuideA new starter’s first month: a buddy, and one question a week.
A named buddy on day one, one question a week for four weeks, one thing acted on, and the new starter's view shared with the team.
2 min readGuideFixing one process a month: the organisation is efficiently run, locally, by you.
Ask which process wastes the most time, fix or chase one a month, report back, and keep the list of fixes where the team can see it.
2 min readGuideWho got what: a monthly fairness check.
A monthly list of who got the work, the credit and the chances; interrupting the interruption; and a quarterly question about what does not feel fair.
3 min readGuideThe return-to-work conversation: ten minutes on the first day back.
Ten minutes in private on the first day back: how are you, did work contribute, what needs to change, and a date to check.
2 min readObservationFive things managers do that move engagement
The research agrees the line manager matters. Here are five practices a manager can start this week, and how to tell whether they are working.
6 min readDevelopment, coaching & careers
Career conversations, coaching and mentoring that people actually use.
Career and development conversations: a manager's four-step guide
Set the right horizon for each person, decide what they should leave knowing, doing and feeling, ask better questions, and agree a strengths-first plan.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideYour development, your career: getting the most from a development conversation
Written for the employee: who owns what, nine questions to prepare, how to use the conversation, and a plan you will actually use.
⇩ Free download6 min readGuideSetting up a mentoring relationship that works
How mentoring differs from managing, coaching and sponsorship, who owns what, and twelve questions to agree before the real work starts.
⇩ Free download6 min readGuideBuying coaching: seven questions to answer before you start
Where coaching fits and where it doesn’t, seven questions to settle before anyone signs, a three-phase shape and how to tell whether it worked.
⇩ Free download8 min readGuideTell, ask or something in between? Six ways to intervene when coaching
Six ways to intervene when you coach – three that push, three that pull – with when each helps, how each sounds and what to watch for.
7 min readGuideBefore you buy training: a four-step needs analysis
Current state, desired state, root cause, then choose and evaluate. An hour with the person asking tells you whether training will fix it – and what to measure if it does.
⇩ Free download6 min readTeams
Building, starting and running teams that perform.
Starting a new team or project: a charter and kick-off checklist
An honest team-or-group test, the questions a sponsor must answer before kick-off, and a one-page charter the team writes together.
⇩ Free download6 min readGuideEight team exercises that get people talking honestly
Snowball fight, personal shield, market stalls, Aliens, World Café and three more: how to run each, the debrief questions, and what the leader does afterwards.
⇩ Free download11 min readLeading change
Taking people through change, and communicating so it lands.
Leading people through change: what you'll see at each stage, and what to do
Denial, resistance, exploration, commitment: the signs of each stage, what people need from you at each, and how to plan for the dip.
⇩ Free download8 min readGuideThe pre-mortem: finding the four to six things your team must get right
Imagine you have failed, work back to the four to six critical success factors that deserve most of your time, test the assumptions, and track them on one canvas.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideRunning a senior team away day that changes something
Design backwards from what the team should know, do and feel; interview first; use a tested one- or two-day flow; and follow through within a week.
⇩ Free download8 min readGuidePulse surveys during a merger: measuring the first hundred days
How to design, time, run and read a merger pulse survey so leaders can see how the deal is landing between announcement and day one hundred, and what to do between waves.
8 min readFeedback & 360
Introducing, receiving and acting on multi-source feedback.
Introducing 360 feedback: what to decide before you start
Five decisions to make before any 360 programme launches – and the four risks that sink most of them.
5 min readGuideThe trouble with the feedback sandwich: praise on the spot, advice in its own time
The sandwich dilutes the praise and hides the advice. Praise on the spot, give advice in its own time, and know what helps when feedback is hard to hear.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideHow to read and act on your 360 feedback report
Written for the person receiving it: set your context, read it twice, find the patterns, choose up to three areas, and close the loop with the people who gave you feedback.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideRunning a 360 feedback conversation: a coach's and manager's guide
What to check before the session, six steps in the room, how to handle strong reactions, and what changes when you are also their line manager.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideTurning 360 feedback into goals
Pick two or three themes, write each as a behaviour people will notice, plan how you will learn it, and check progress with the people who gave the feedback.
⇩ Free download6 min readObservationStop feeding back. Start feeding forward.
Most US employees surveyed would opt out of a 360 if they could. The problem isn’t multi-source feedback – it’s that the mirror only shows the past.
4 min readHiring & assessment
Selection, psychometrics and references: getting the right people in.
How to run a structured, competency-based interview
Choose up to five competencies, ask every candidate the same questions, probe for what they actually did, and rate against indicators – including “insufficient evidence”.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideBefore you use a personality questionnaire: seven things to decide
Seven decisions that make a personality questionnaire useful and fair in recruitment – before a single candidate completes it.
6 min readGuideUsing a personality questionnaire at interview
Read the profile against the job, turn what it suggests into hypotheses, and test each one with real examples – never by reading the profile back as a verdict.
⇩ Free download7 min readExplainerSituational judgement tests: what they are and when they earn their place
Realistic work dilemmas with a set of possible responses: what SJTs measure, how a good one is built, and when they are worth using.
6 min readGuideHiring in the AI era: keeping assessment fair and trustworthy when candidates use AI
Candidates can now use AI to polish applications and answer online tests. Eight steps to keep assessment trustworthy without treating every candidate as a suspect.
8 min readGuideTaking up references that tell you something
Most references confirm dates and little else. Seven steps to get evidence you can use, and the UK legal points every hiring manager should know.
⇩ Free download8 min readED&I
Equality, diversity and inclusion, measured across the whole employee lifecycle.
Your inclusion results are in: ten places to start
Ten practical starting points after an inclusion survey, from reading the results by group to an inclusion lens on every stage of the employee lifecycle.
6 min readGuideMeasuring inclusion across the employee lifecycle
An annual survey only hears from people who joined and stayed. What to ask candidates, starters, employees and leavers, and how to cut the data without exposing anyone.
⇩ Free download8 min readObservationOne size does not fit all: what different groups value at work
Workforce averages hide what different people value, and group stereotypes hide it just as well. How to find out what matters, and act on it without either mistake.
6 min readLaw, regulation & culture
Employment law, regulators and the evidence a board needs.
Culture evidence for FCA-regulated firms: what a complaint log can't tell you
The FCA’s non-financial misconduct rules are live. A complaint-free record is not evidence of a healthy culture – here is what is.
4 min readExplainerThe Employment Rights Act 2025: what to measure, and when
A plain timeline of the Act as at October 2026, and the thread that runs through it: almost every change asks for evidence of what employees experienced, not just a policy.
6 min readExplainerThe duty to prevent sexual harassment: the evidence a policy can't give you
From 30 October 2026 the preventative duty is “all reasonable steps”, with liability for third-party harassment. What evidence of reasonable steps looks like.
⇩ Free download7 min readObservationSilence isn't evidence: what a healthy speak-up culture looks like in the data
A quiet speak-up log looks the same whether people are safe or have stopped speaking. Six signs that tell them apart, and the data that shows them.
6 min readHow to run it
Practical method: questionnaires, response rates, anonymity and reporting.
How to choose an exit interview approach (and why independence changes the answers)
Who should ask, when, what to ask, how to get leavers to answer, and what a useful report looks like – the questions to settle before choosing a provider.
6 min readGuideRaising exit questionnaire completion rates: what works
Measure completion against everyone who left, then pull ten practical levers – most of which cost nothing but attention.
⇩ Free download6 min readGuideHow to read a leaver analysis report (and what to take to the board)
Eight steps through a leaver report, from the base and the happy/unhappy split to small-group traps – and the five things to put in front of a board.
6 min readExplainerAnonymity and confidentiality in employee surveys: what to promise and how to keep it
Anonymous and confidential are different promises. What to tell people, the seven reporting rules that keep the promise, and the UK GDPR basics.
7 min readGuideRunning an engagement survey: a practical implementation plan
From objectives eight weeks out to a progress update six months after: the timeline, who to brief, how to lift responses, and how to turn results into action.
⇩ Free download8 min readGuideTelling your people you are changing the exit process
Who to tell about a new exit process and in what order, the five questions every audience will ask, a one-page managers' briefing, illustrative wording and the pitfalls.
7 min readFrom the NHS section
NHS-specific research and guides that match your search.
Disappointed advocates: what a year of NHS leavers told us
A year of NHS exit questionnaires: 56% left happy, 44% dissatisfied — and half of the unhappy leavers would consider coming back.
4 min readResearchThe first 90 days in the NHS: what new starters told us
74% of NHS new starters are engaged and one in five is already at risk – and the difference comes down to a few early moments a trust controls.
5 min readResearchLeaving through an ED&I lens: who carries the strain in the NHS
Leaver data from fourteen NHS organisations: who leaves dissatisfied, why, and where the risks concentrate.
5 min readResearchWho is leaving the NHS, and from which roles
One trust-wide leaver figure hides several different stories. Split by staff group, NHS exit data points to different reasons and different fixes.
6 min readResearchWould they come back? The returner opportunity in NHS exit data
Half of unhappy NHS leavers would consider coming back, and in our 2020 benchmark most of those moving jobs went to another NHS employer. In our experience, few trusts ask them.
5 min readResearchNursing and midwifery in the NHS: reluctant leavers, uncertain starters
Nurses and midwives leave reluctantly, driven out by conditions rather than values – and some of their newest colleagues are already at risk.
5 min readResearchAdmin, estates and support staff: the NHS retention gap behind the clinical headlines
Retention plans tend to start with clinical staff. Exit data from admin, estates and support roles tells a story of band ceilings, restructures and feeling unseen.
5 min readResearchThe early-leaver window in the NHS: which new starters are at risk, and when
Almost a third of NHS new starters do not yet know how long they will stay. Which groups are most at risk, and what they came for in the first place.
5 min readGuideBuilding a returner programme in an NHS trust
Half of unhappy NHS leavers would consider coming back. Seven steps to turn that into returners, with a checklist and tracker to download.
⇩ Free download7 min readGuideWhat NHS line managers can do in a new starter's first 12 weeks
Only 71% of NHS new starters get regular feedback from their manager, and across staff groups it is the most consistent gap. A 12-week plan to close it.
⇩ Free download7 min readSee what your own data already knows.
Send us your last twelve months of leaver data and we’ll show you what it reveals – no charge, no deck, no obligation. Or start with a free trial or a 30-minute conversation.