Practical Implications for Retention Strategy

Covering Assessment Criterion 3.1 of 5HR02, this video draws together the turnover classifications and push-pull framework introduced earlier in the unit and applies them directly to the design of retention strategy. The video addresses how organisations should distinguish voluntary from involuntary turnover, and avoidable from unavoidable turnover, when interrogating their own workforce data — and why honest classification matters when diagnosing the real causes of departure.

A significant portion of the video is devoted to the methods HR professionals use to surface push factors within their specific organisational context: employee engagement surveys, stay interviews and exit interviews each appear as distinct diagnostic tools, with attention given to how the three work together. The video also examines the psychological contract as a retention consideration, alongside the competitive monitoring of compensation, benefits and development opportunities as a means of tracking external pull factors. The question of counter-offers and the timing of retention interventions — proactive identification of flight risk versus reactive responses to resignation — is also covered.

The video closes its practical discussion by examining how retention priorities shift across career stages, noting that early-career employees, mid-career employees and those approaching retirement may each respond to different organisational levers. Rather than advocating a single universal programme, the video argues for targeted approaches built on the specific push factors present in a given organisation, and directs strategic focus toward avoidable departures involving high performers, critical skills holders and employees in whom significant development investment has been made.