To reduce turnover, you must move beyond simple engagement surveys and focus on aligning individual work preferences with role requirements and team culture.
Key takeaways
- Reducing turnover requires a deep understanding of people intelligence to ensure the right fit from day one.
- Aligning work personalities with specific team needs creates a sense of belonging that naturally boosts retention.
- Effective leadership adaptation – moving between directive and democratic styles – is essential for keeping diverse teams engaged.
- Early intervention through data-driven insights allows you to address friction before it leads to a resignation.
High staff turnover is more than just an HR metric – it is a significant drain on your organisation’s momentum and culture. When a talented team member leaves, they take more than just their skills with them; they take institutional knowledge and disrupt the social fabric of their team. For mid-market leaders, the cost of replacing an employee can range from 50% to 200% of their annual salary, making retention a top priority for sustainable growth.
The current workplace landscape requires a shift in how we think about the employee lifecycle. It is no longer enough to simply offer a competitive salary. Modern teams stay where they feel understood, valued, and appropriately challenged. At Compono, we have spent over a decade researching how to bridge the gap between business needs and human potential to create environments where people want to stay.
Many organisations try to reduce turnover by focusing on the exit rather than the entry. By the time an employee reaches an exit interview, the opportunity to retain them has long passed. Often, the root cause of turnover is a fundamental mismatch between the individual's natural work preferences and the actual demands of their role. This mismatch leads to 'burnout' – not necessarily from a high volume of work, but from the mental tax of performing tasks that drain their energy.
Imagine a scenario where a natural Pioneer, someone who thrives on innovation and spontaneity, is placed in a role that requires rigid adherence to detailed, repetitive processes. Eventually, the friction between their personality and the job requirements will lead them to look elsewhere. By using people intelligence early in the hiring process, you can identify these potential friction points before they become a retention problem.
At Compono, we help you solve this by assessing candidates across three critical dimensions: Organisation Fit, Job Fit, and Personality Fit. Using Compono Hire, you can ensure that every new hire isn't just capable of doing the job, but is naturally motivated to do it well. This foundational alignment is the most effective way to reduce turnover over the long term.
Once you have the right people in the right seats, the focus shifts to maintaining that alignment as the team evolves. Culture is not a static thing you 'set and forget'; it is the sum of the daily interactions between your people. When employees feel that their unique contributions are recognised and that they are working in a way that feels authentic to them, they are significantly less likely to leave.
A common mistake is assuming that all employees want the same type of recognition. A Campaigner might thrive on public praise and high-visibility projects, whereas an Auditor might find more value in a quiet, detailed acknowledgment of their precision and accuracy. Understanding these nuances allows managers to tailor their leadership style to the individual, creating a more inclusive and supportive environment.
We recommend using a framework like The Compono Culture, Engagement & Performance Model to understand how these elements interlink. When you can measure the actual sentiment of your team and map it against their work personalities, you gain the 'people intelligence' needed to make proactive changes. This data-led approach removes the guesswork from culture-building and provides a clear roadmap for improving retention.
Leadership behaviour is one of the most cited reasons for employee turnover. However, the problem often isn't 'bad' leadership, but 'inflexible' leadership. Different situations and different personality types require different approaches. A team facing an urgent crisis might need a directive style, while a creative team in a brainstorming phase will flourish under a more democratic, non-directive approach.
When leaders fail to adapt, they create friction. For instance, a Helper who values harmony and collaboration might feel stressed and undervalued if managed with a purely directive, results-only style. Conversely, an Evaluator might become frustrated with a leader who spends too much time on emotional consensus rather than moving toward a logical decision. Reducing turnover requires leaders to be self-aware enough to flex their style to suit the people they manage.
Management teams can gain these insights through Compono Engage, which reveals how different team members prefer to communicate and resolve conflict. By understanding that a Coordinator needs structure and clear priorities to feel secure, a manager can provide the specific environment that keeps that employee engaged and committed to the organisation.
Finally, employees often leave because they feel they have hit a ceiling. If they cannot see a future where they can grow and develop their skills, they will start looking for that future elsewhere. However, development shouldn't just be a generic training programme. It should be personalised to what actually motivates the individual.
An Advisor might find growth in mentoring others or facilitating collaborative workshops, while a Doer might prefer technical mastery and clear, practical skill-building. When you align development opportunities with an employee's natural work personality, the learning feels rewarding rather than burdensome. This sense of progress is a powerful 'stay factor' that can drastically reduce turnover in competitive talent markets.
Key insights
- Turnover is often a symptom of poor alignment between work personality and job requirements.
- Proactive retention starts at the hiring stage by assessing for organisation and culture fit.
- Leadership must be flexible, adapting between directive and democratic styles based on the individual's needs.
- Personalised development plans that respect work preferences create long-term loyalty.
Reducing turnover isn't about one-off perks; it's about building a workplace where people feel they truly belong. By leveraging people intelligence, you can create a culture that naturally retains its best talent.
While salary is important, the most common reasons for turnover are a lack of cultural fit, poor management relationships, and a lack of clear career progression. Aligning an employee's work personality with their role is a critical step in addressing these issues.
Data provides 'people intelligence' by showing you where friction exists in a team. By measuring engagement and mapping it against personality types, you can see if turnover is being caused by specific leadership styles or a mismatch in work preferences.
Yes, but it must be measured objectively. Using tools to assess Organisation Fit ensures you aren't just hiring people who are similar to you, but people who share your organisation's values and will thrive in your specific work environment.
Absolutely. When leaders learn to adapt their style – moving from directive to supportive based on the personality of their team members – they create a more engaging environment that directly reduces the desire for employees to leave.
Look for signs of disengagement, such as a drop in participation or a shift in work quality. Using regular engagement pulses can help you spot these trends early, allowing you to intervene before a resignation is handed in.