Employee Turnover is Rising Again. Are you Ready?

and Tom Corfman

Employee turnover is beginning to climb, creating challenges for internal communications teams to slow the trend.

“Employee turnover is costly for companies, posing significant business risks,” The Conference Board warned on Feb. 19, 2025, when it issued a pair of reports on retention.

We have a questionnaire to determine whether your internal comms team is doing everything it can to motivate employees to stay on the job.

The H-P Way
Internal comms teams can reduce the cost of employee turnover by helping leaders and managers sharpen their skills. For example, executives should step up their efforts to informally and spontaneously meet and talk with employees. Hewlett-Packard popularized the practice in the 1970s, calling it “Management by Walking Around.”

The practice may sometimes have unexpected benefits, according to an apocryphal story about an H-P division manager. John Blocker, a friend of co-founder Bill Hewitt, was known in the 1980s for walking around a facility in Rockaway, New Jersey, chatting with workers.

One employee said, “Those of us working there though… really knew what he was doing… he was walking around the facility… BUMMING CIGARETTES.”

Even so, the employee acknowledged that Blocker’s walks around the plant were “an excellent way to keep your finger on the pulse of the activity, morale, etc., in the division.”

Job apps are out
Managers will have to do plenty of walking around to slow employee turnover this year.

Fifty-one percent of workers are actively seeking a new job, tying a record high set in 2014-15, according to a Dec. 3, 2024, Gallup survey. The survey is one of a series of recent reports by the Washington, D.C.-based polling company that show the American workforce is in deep turmoil.

An employee retention index based on federal jobs data fell from 104.7 in the third quarter to 98.5 in the fourth quarter, 2024, the first significant decline in 12 months and largest drop in two years. Turnover will heat up in the middle of 2025, according to the index by Eagle Hill Consulting.

In a sign that the problem is rising, The Conference Board last month issued “Cracking the Code,” a pair of reports on the costs of turnover and ways to encourage employees to stay.

“While compensation and job security are critical factors in retention, workers today are more focused on respect, meaningful work, career growth, flexibility, and alignment with organizational values,” said Robin Erickson, head of human capital research at the board. 

Mandatory return-to-office policies are likely fueling some employees’ decisions to look for new jobs. The pullback on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs also may prompt some workers to question whether their workplace will be hospitable.

Racial minorities are already more likely to quit compared to non-minorities, studies show. Professor Adina Sterling of the Columbia Business School looked at the factors outside the job that prompt people to quit. She found that White and Black workers leave for different external reasons, such as a better job or a lack of transportation.

“The manager, I think, is core to this,” she recently told the news site of the business school. “If a manager can be curious and inquisitive about how to help people be their best at work, oftentimes this will naturally bring up for workers some of those outside stressors and opportunities.” 

Take the questionnaire
While external factors have an influence, workplace conditions are key. The Conference Board surveyed employees intending to leave and those intending to stay about their satisfaction with 11 job factors. One result stands out.

Just 23.8% of employees who have little intention to stay in their jobs said they were satisfied with their organization’s communications channels, the business research organization says. Meanwhile, 73.4% of those who intend to stay expressed satisfaction with the comms channels.

That sounds like an opportunity for companies troubled by turnover. To see how your comms team is doing, ask yourself these questions that Julie has crafted:

Leadership
1. Does your leadership communication plan include all the necessary players?

2. Do you have measures in place to guarantee transparent, consistent and timely communication to build and maintain employee trust?

3. Do your leaders have a cohesive narrative that demonstrates a shared vision and commitment to employees’ well-being?

4. Do your leaders need storytelling training?

Managers
5. Have you established a baseline understanding of manager communication requirements?

6. Are you working with managers to strengthen their communication skills?

7. Do you have a process and dedicated space for people leaders to tap into tip sheets, toolkits, talking points and guides for team meetings and one-on-ones?

Culture
8. Do your communication strategies, plans and programs aim to integrate and unite employees across functions, regions, business units and brands?

9. What are you doing to foster dialogue across boundaries and increase connections among employees?

10. Are you helping employees build their social capital?

Feedback & Recognition
11. Do you have a communication plan for recognition?

12. How are you promoting the program, providing opportunities for public recognition?

13. Do you have leadership support?

14. How are managers and employees encouraged to participate?

Technology & Tools
15. Do you follow the trends in communication technology?

16. Do you have the right mix of communication channels?

17. When was the last time your organization reviewed its tools?

18. Is your technology improving employee experience? 

19. Is your technology promoting information sharing?

Managers are the most important when it comes to raising retention rates, which brings us back to Hewlett-Packard.

H-P cofounder David Packard takes credit for leading the development of the company’s distinctive management philosophy, but it was an engineer, John Doyle, who gave it a name, originally “Management by Wandering Around,” not walking around.

In a 1977 company brochure, Doyle urged other managers to try it .

“It is just plain fun,” he said.

Julie Baron is an affiliate consultant with Ragan Consulting Group who knows a thing or two about employee retention. With 30 years of communication experience, her expertise includes employee and leadership communications, global communications, training and public/media relations. Tom Corfman is a senior consultant with Ragan Consulting.

Contact our client team to learn more about how we can help you with your communications. Follow RCG on LinkedIn and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.