What It Really Costs When People Leave (and What You Get When They Stay)

The math, using a simple example

Research commonly puts the cost of replacing a mid-level employee at 50 to 200% of their annual salary. That range covers recruiting, onboarding, the months a new hire takes to get up to speed, and the knowledge that walks out the door.

Take a hypothetical 200-person company with 20% voluntary turnover. That is 40 roles to refill each year. At the range above, the company is spending somewhere between $1 million and $2 million or more annually just to stand still. (This is an illustration, not a client story. Your numbers will differ with your salaries and your turnover.)

Why the cost is bigger than the line item

The replacement figure is only the visible part. Teams that keep losing people also lose momentum: managers spend their time hiring instead of leading, the people who stay pick up extra work, and the next resignation gets a little more likely.

Gallup research points the other direction too. Companies with highly engaged teams are 21% more profitable than those with disengaged ones. Engagement and retention are two views of the same thing, which is whether people feel their work is worth showing up for.

Burnout sits underneath a lot of this

Gallup also reports that 76% of employees experience burnout at least sometimes. Burned-out employees are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 2.6 times more likely to be actively looking for another job. For many companies, burnout is a quiet driver of both absenteeism and attrition long before anyone hands in a resignation letter.

The World Health Organization estimates an average return of $4 for every $1 invested in treating and preventing common mental health issues like burnout, driven by lower absenteeism and higher productivity.

So what do you do with this?

Start with a clear read on where you actually stand. Averages hide a lot. Some teams are doing well and some are stretched, and a company-wide number can't tell you which is which.

That is why we built the Burnout Score. It looks at five areas that shape how work feels day to day: workload, role clarity, autonomy, belonging, and leadership. It gives you a benchmark for your own company, so you can see where to focus first and measure whether things are improving.

A good first step can be small. A half-day or full-day workshop or retreat gets a team out of the day-to-day, starts honest conversations, and gives managers a few practical habits. One event won't change a culture on its own, which is why we like to pair it with real data and a plan for what happens afterward.

The takeaway

The goal is not just fewer people leaving. It is a workplace where people stay because they want to, and where the money you used to spend on replacing them goes into something better.